Departure

Japanese movies are really good recently. I saw "おくりびと" yesterday and found it exceptionally good.
It starts with a comical touch but soon you find yourself in the depth of life and death.
A cellist loses his job when his orchestra goes broke. He decides to leave Tokyo to return to his hometown in Yamagata. He finds a job there which he first thought was travel agent but actually an undertaker. It is in fact an undertaker's undertaker who cleanses and purifies the body of the dead and makes up its face before putting it in a coffin so that it maintains the dignity of the person when in life. It elicit the bereaved family tons of feelings of love and.... regret for the irreparable past.
I must avoid being a spoiler by telling you the whole story, which itself is not such a tear jerker. But still somehow it was a film that jerks liters of your tear. It reminds you that death is death because here is life and life is life because here is death.
Regrettably Ryoko Hirosue was a ham. Her act is always cheaply exaggerated like she was in ポッポ屋. Her "coy" expression spoiled the excellent movie. I have no idea why the director Takita employed her for Mokkun's wife.
The music by Joe Hisaishi was not bad but I do not like the idea of something like "sad music for sad scene". It makes the whole movie redundant and cheap.
But overall the movie was really good. I don't think any people but Japanese could create it.
Copyright of the picture: 2008 映画「おくりびと」製作委員会