DEPARTURES directed by Yojiro Takita, written by Kundo Koyama, with Masahiro Motoki, Tsutomu Yamazaki and Ryoko Hirosue. A Kino-Smith release. 130 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (June 12). For venues and times, see listings.
DEPARTURES directed by Yojiro Takita, written by Kundo Koyama, with Masahiro Motoki, Tsutomu Yamazaki and Ryoko Hirosue. A Kino-Smith release. 130 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (June 12). For venues and times, see listings.
Yojiro Takita is no dummy. he knew his labour of love, Departures, had a delicate subject: Japanese funeral rituals, specifically coffining, the act of preparing the body of the deceased.
But that didn’t stop him from pursuing the project. He just had to wait until he was old enough to handle it.
“It definitely is a risky subject,” he tells me on the phone through an interpreter. “But death has always been something that intrigued me, especially the coffiners. And when I reached an age when I was mature enough to take it on, I did.”
It’s not exactly a theme that guarantees a film’s popularity. So you can imagine Takita’s surprise when it hit the Oscar jackpot, taking home the prize for best foreign-language film.
“The very idea that it would be nominated was something we joked about,” he says, “until it started winning awards [top prize at last year’s Montreal Film Festival, for example], and then we thought we might get a nomination. But, yes, we were surprised when we won.”
What makes the film work is the humour it brings to its darker themes. Credit the great Tsutomu Yamazaki, whose expert encoffiner who loves to cook is both outrageous and dignified.
“Yamazaki was the first actor who came to mind,” recalls Takita. “He has a unique charisma and presence. You can almost sense his background without his saying anything.
“He was also the only actor who could do the eating scenes with such gusto.”
Departures’ main character, the young and alienated Daigo, is a cellist, and the film has some gorgeous sequences in which he plays the instrument he owned as a boy. As Takita explains why he and writer Kundo Koyama chose that instrument, you get a sense of the attention to detail that went into the film.
“We wanted to evoke the darkness that hides behind the surface, and the cello was the right instrument to do that,” Takita says. “It’s designed to resemble the human body, and it’s cradled when you’re performing on it in a way that matches the action of the encoffiners. The cello also has a wide range – high and low, shallow and deep – akin to the human voice.”
Though the narrative focuses on Daigo and his adjustment to a job that causes him to be shunned in his old community, it also tracks a young couple trying to come to grips with the global financial meltdown. Those same economic woes led to Daigo losing his job as a musician.
“The recession is a phenomenon here in Japan, too,” Takita reminds me. “And we wanted to tell a story about young people who’ve lost their jobs returning home and experiencing a spiritual discovery, a discovery of their roots.”
As for that incredible Oscar night, Takita remembers everything. He’s quick to reel off the names of people he couldn’t believe he had the chance to meet.
“Sean Penn, Robert De Niro, Steven Spielberg,” he says. “I’ll never forget the feeling of going backstage after winning.” 3
susanc@nowtoronto.com
