Departures (2009) FULL MOVIE DIVX (Okuribito)

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Review

Most of the events in Yojiro Takita’s “Departures” flow from a comical misunderstanding. After a Tokyo orchestra is disbanded, an earnest young cellist, Daigo, seeks a new line of work in the provinces, spots a help-wanted ad for a company that deals in departures and assumes it to be some sort of travel agency. In fact, the company is a one-man operation that deals in encoffination—the ceremonial preparation of corpses for cremation—and the owner wants to hire an assistant. Still, Daigo’s assumption isn’t completely off the mark. The job takes him and his wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) on a guided tour to the far country of death and dying, with frequent stops for beguiling comedy along the road.

Here’s to humor in all its manifestations, whether as the glint in the jaundiced eye of a horror flick or as the indispensable leavening of this gorgeous drama, which won an Oscar earlier this year as the best foreign language film of 2008. Daigo is, at the outset, a chronic screw-up who can’t bring himself to tell his wife what he does in his new position, can’t even get a grip on a cake of soap in a public bath. (He’s there to expunge the chemical smell of his trade.) Slowly, though, in a film that’s mostly slow-paced, the self-doubting boy comes into manhood under the tutelage of his boss, a consummate professional who can advertise his services with a huckster’s flair, yet consider them with a philosopher’s gravity. (He’s played by the wonderfully taciturn Tsutomu Yamazaki, who was the trucker, Goro, in “Tampopo.”)

Occasionally the story turns manipulative, or self-conscious: I could have done without the hero playing his cello in picturesque fields near snow-capped mountains, though his musical yearnings perfectly complement the movie’s main theme of spiritual growth. (Joe Hisaishi did the splendid score.) But the rituals that Daigo learns to perform are literally spellbinding. While the family and friends of the deceased watch silently, the encoffiner uses elaborate gestures that might be those of a magician or a sommelier to wash and dress the body, yet does it all with exquisite tenderness. In one of the movie’s most beautiful moments, Mika comes to understand Daigo’s quiet professionalism, and to love the soulful man her young husband has become. But beautiful moments abound. In “Departures,” the contemplation of death prepares the way for an appreciation of life.