Japan Earthquake Fundraising Day – 3 April 2011
After the terrible events in Japan we feel compelled to do our bit. We have organised a whole day devoted to fundraising for the victims of the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. On Sunday 3 April we will have a mixture of workshops, dance, music and film. So please come down and show your support this Mother’s Day for the victims, especially the mothers who have lost sons, daughters, husbands and parents in the devastating circumstances of the fateful day, 13 March, in Japan.
Timetable of Events
3pm – Calligraphy demonstration/workshop by Sugiura Megumi (suggested donation €5)
4pm – Origami demonstration/workshop by Makoto Kawabe and Mie Matsumura (suggested donation €5)
5pm – “Modern Rituals” dance and video performance by Hiromi Okumura accompanied by Jenn Kirby (suggested donation €5)
7pm – Film screening – “Departures” by Yôjirô Takita, 2008, 130min, Japanese with English subtitles (suggested donation €5)
Departures (2008)
CFCP will screen Departures on Sunday 3 April 2011 at 7pm as part of our Japan Earthquake Fund Raising Day.
Plot:
Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a cellist in Tokyo, loses his job. He decides to move back to his hometown, Sakata, Yamagata, with his wife Mika (Ryōko Hirosue).
Back home, Daigo finds a advertisement for “assisting departures”. He goes to the interview, uncertain of the job’s nature. He is hired on the spot after only one question (“Will you work hard?”) and being handed an “advance” by his new boss Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki). He discovers that the job involves preparing the dead. Daigo reluctantly accepts. He returns to his wife with sukiyaki for a celebration, but he tells her he will be performing some sort of ceremony.
On his first day, he is made to act as a corpse in a DVD explaining the procedure. His first assignment is to clean, dress and apply cosmetics to the body of an aged woman who has died alone at home, remaining undiscovered for two weeks. He is beset with nausea, and humiliated when strangers on the bus detect an unsavory scent. He goes to a public bath to wash off. Daigo is spotted by Yamashita, an old schoolfriend.
Daigo completes a number of assignments and experiences the gratitude of those left behind, gaining a sense of fulfillment. But Mika finds the DVD and begs him to give up such a “disgusting profession.” Daigo refuses to quit, so she leaves him. Even Yamashita tells him to get “a proper job.”
After a few months, Daigo’s wife returns, announcing that she is pregnant. She seems to assume that he will get a different job. While Daigo and Mika try to work things out, the telephone rings with the news that Tsuyako, Yamashita`s mother, has died. In front of Yamashita, his family and Mika, Daigo prepares her body. The ritual earns the respect of all present. During cremation, Tsuyako’s friend appears as the cremator. He thinks that death is not the “end” but the “gate to a next stage”. Afterwards, Daigo goes to the river and finds a small stone to give to Mika. He tells her about “stone-letters”, a story told to him by his father.
They are informed of the elder Kobayashi’s death. He refuses to see him, but Daigo’s coworker convinces him to go, confessing that she herself abandoned her son in Hokkaido when he was only six. Sasaki invites him to take one of the display coffins. Daigo and Mika go to see the body of his father, but Daigo finds that he cannot recognize him. As the funeral workers carelessly handle the body, he angrily stops them, and his wife explains that her husband is a professional. As he handles the dressing of the body, Daigo finds the stone-letter he had given to his father when he was little, in his father’s hands. He at last recognizes his father. As he finishes the ceremony, Daigo gently presses the stone-letter to Mika’s pregnant belly.
Review:
The film, after all, is hardly a Saturday night no-brainer. Loosely adapted from Aoki Simmons’s autobiography Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician, it’s about a redundant cellist who finds meaning in his life when he gets a job ceremonially washing bodies, preparing them for entry into the next life. Even in Japan, where films about death and funerals are not uncommon (see Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece Ikiru), the role of the encoffineer is taboo – something the film confronts. When the hero Daigo (played by Masahiro Motoki) sees an ad for somebody to work in “departures” he thinks he is applying to become a travel agent. But he overcomes his revulsion at the idea of working with corpses to find fulfilment.
Director Yôjirô Takita says he never imagined that his film would be a commercial success like his previous porn films, still less one that would win awards in the west. “People may look away, thinking that dealing with this theme is not necessarily commercial. However, maybe because it is unusual and people do look away, it makes us creators even more curious and want to open the doors to that world.”
Yet Departures has struck a chord worldwide. “The idea actually came from Motoki himself,” says Takita. “Through his travels in India, he had grown a very strong consciousness about life and death. The idea of the encoffineer was somewhat an unusual ritual, even for Japanese, but we were all fascinated about this occupation which acted as a bridge between the deceased and the living.”
Awards:
| Academy Awards, USA | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Won | Oscar | Best Foreign Language Film of the Year Japan. |
| Asia Pacific Screen Awards | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2009 | Won | Asia Pacific Screen Award | Best Performance by an Actor Masahiro Motoki |
| Nominated | Asia Pacific Screen Award | Best Screenplay Kundô Koyama |
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| Asian Film Awards | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2009 | Won | Asian Film Award | Best Actor Masahiro Motoki |
| Awards of the Japanese Academy | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2009 | Won | Award of the Japanese Academy | Best Actor Masahiro Motoki |
| Best Cinematography Takeshi Hamada |
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| Best Director Yôjirô Takita |
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| Best Editing Akimasa Kawashima |
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| Best Film |
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| Best Lighting Hitoshi Takaya |
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| Best Screenplay Kundô Koyama |
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| Best Sound Satoshi Ozaki Osamu Onodera |
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| Best Supporting Actor Tsutomu Yamazaki |
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| Best Supporting Actress Kimiko Yo |
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| Nominated | Award of the Japanese Academy | Best Actress Ryoko Hirosue |
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| Best Art Direction Fumio Ogawa |
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| Best Film Score Joe Hisaishi |
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| Blue Ribbon Awards | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2009 | Won | Blue Ribbon Award | Best Actor Masahiro Motoki |
| Hawaii International Film Festival | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2008 | Won | Audience Award | Favorite Feature Yôjirô Takita |
| Hochi Film Awards | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2008 | Won | Hochi Film Award | Best Film |
| Hong Kong Film Awards | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2010 | Nominated | Hong Kong Film Award | Best Asian Film Japan. |
| Kinema Junpo Awards | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2009 | Won | Kinema Junpo Award | Best Actor Masahiro Motoki |
| Best Director Yôjirô Takita |
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| Best Film Yôjirô Takita |
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| Best Screenplay Kundô Koyama |
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| Mainichi Film Concours | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2009 | Won | Mainichi Film Concours | Best Film |
| Best Sound Satoshi Ozaki |
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| Montréal World Film Festival | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2008 | Won | Grand Prix des Amériques | Yôjirô Takita |
| Nikkan Sports Film Awards | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2008 | Won | Nikkan Sports Film Award | Best Director Yôjirô Takita |
| Best Film |
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| Palm Springs International Film Festival | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2009 | Won | Audience Award | Best Narrative Feature Yôjirô Takita |
| Robert Festival | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2010 | Nominated | Robert | Best Non-American Film (Årets ikke-amerikanske film) Yôjirô Takita |
| Udine Far East Film Festival | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2009 | Won | Audience Award | Yôjirô Takita |
| Black Dragon Audience Award | Yôjirô Takita |
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| Wisconsin Film Festival | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2009 | Won | Audience Award | Best Narrative Film Yôjirô Takita |
| Yokohama Film Festival | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
| 2009 | Won | Festival Prize | Best Director Yôjirô Takita |
| Best Film Yôjirô Takita |
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| Best Supporting Actress Kimiko Yo Also for Maboroshi no Yamataikoku (2008) and Oka wo koete (2008). Tied with Ryoko Hirosue for Departures (2008). |
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| Best Supporting Actress Ryoko Hirosue Tied with Kimiko Yo for Departures (2008). |
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