Thursday, July 9, 2009
Departures is a masterpiece. It is not a fast, tight, action-driven movie, as we are so fond of in this boisterous country, but rather soft and delicate, almost fragile. The story unfolds like the petals of a flower as the audience is introduced to the Japanese art of encoffinment. This is not a surgical procedure conducted in the laboratory of a mortician with tubes, knives, saws, plaster, paint, and embalming fluid. Family and loved ones are present. The body is ceremonially cleansed, dressed, and groomed with respect, grace, and modesty before being placed in a coffin.
Josef Woodward wonders how Departures won Best Foreign Film over the “obviously superior” German nominee Der Baader Meinhof Komplex [Movie Guide, “Departures,” 6/28/09]. The answer may be found in the question—perhaps it was not so obvious to the Academy that the gun-blazing, bomb-blasting German action-thriller about a terrorist group that carried out bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations in the ’60s deserved the Oscar. Most of the audience at Departures stayed through the credits, which were entirely in Japanese, simply to watch Masahiro Motoki perform one more encoffinment under the titles. Maybe the American cinema audience is maturing. — Douglas Gillies, author of 101 Cool Ways to Die