Departures : Okuribito

Locations
Call Number: DVD FLC-JPN Departures
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 1st Floor 1-week checkout	DVD FLC-JPN Departures	1-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult A/V 1-week checkout	DVD FLC-JPN Departures	1-week checkout	Due 04-27-2024

Title and credits transliterated from the Japanese.
DVD release of the 2008 motion picture.
Special features: interview with director Yôjirô Takita.
Masahiro Motoki, Ryoko Hirosue, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kimiko Yo, Tetta Sugimoto, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Takashi Sasano.
Daigo Kobayashi is a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and finds himself without a job. He decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled 'Departures' thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency. He discovers that the job is actually for a 'Nokanshi' or 'encoffineer,' a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life. While his wife and others despise the job, Daigo takes a certain pride in his work and begins to perfect the art, acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death, between the departed and the family of the departed.
DVD ; Region 1 ; widescreen (1.85:1) presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1 surround.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Okuribito submitted by DBJC on July 25, 2013, 10:56pm I read a short summary of this movie before I watched it and heard that it won an Academy Award. Okay, cool. But I wasn't expecting what I was expecting. Oh man, it was so much more. It was BRILLIANT. For such a fragile subject, this movie tells a story with much beauty that is completely palpable and understandable. It's a Japanese movie, yes, but the idea of death and the concept of death being unclean is an international idea. I didn't have problems understanding the characters or the realization that character had. Why didn't I watch this movie sooner?

Seen it before, but did not write a review. Now seeing it again as one of the best 1500 foreign films, like it very much. submitted by Tassos on December 30, 2021, 4:21pm Excellent movie. Seeing it for the second time after a while, I notice more good things about it. See it yourself and enjoy. In western cultures, the word "enjoy" is almost never linked to death and mourning, but in other cultures it is different, and the passage is much less hurtful. Seeing how the Japanese honor their dead, and the beauty of the wake, one seriously considers having their funeral there as well!