Hasty Departures

It might come as a surprise, but the one movie I might have been looking forward to over any other (well, save maybe Kathryn Bigelow’s sensational The Hurt Locker) was director Yôjirô Takita’s Departures. This was, after all, the surprise winner of the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, beating out supposed frontrunners The Class and Waltz with Bashir for the prize.

Sad to say, after seeing it I can’t quite understand how this upset took place. Sweet, sometimes moving and definitely heartfelt, Departures is nonetheless a bit of a disappointment, repeating itself far too much and not really going anyplace you don’t readily expect right at the start.

It’s an intriguing concept, to be sure. The film follows cellist Daigo Kobayashi (soulfully played by Masahiro Motoki) as he moves back to his home province with his wife after the big city orchestra he plays for disbands. In need of work, he answers an add asking for someone to help assist with ‘Departures.’ Thinking this advertisement must be for a travel agency he immediately applies and hopes for the best.

He gets the job, but the position isn’t with a travel agency. Instead, it is to assist with the ceremonial ‘encoffinating’ of corpses before they are sent for cremation, not exactly the type of work he ever expected to be involved with. While frowned on by the community, Daigo finds himself learning to love his new job, however, the value of what he is doing for the families involved one they seem to appreciate almost beyond words.

There’s more to it, including a subplot about a missing father, an elderly owner of a bathhouse and marital strife caused by the supposed ‘disgrace’ of Daigo position, but it all is trotted out rather perfunctorily if you ask me. What is wonderful is the encoffinating ceremony itself, Takita tapping into that emotional wellspring family members can’t help but feel when a loved one passes.

But even watching those grows tiring after a while. There is, unfortunately, a problem with overkill, the ceremony presented so many times the film’s 131-minute running time almost begins to feel like a funeral dirge itself. I also felt that the ultimate resolution of the missing father subplot was cloying and false, and while Motoki admittedly does an admirable job of hitting the emotional center of the moment, I myself never was moved by the event near as much as I felt I should have.

As for my journey through the first full day of the festival, let me tell you getting your sea legs at the start of SIFF ain’t no easy proposition. My day consisted of watching a movie (the fun and frothy mock documentary Morris: A Life with Bells On, a movie I hope to get more into in a later post), interviewing Robert Osbourne, interviewing Charles Thomas Oldham (writer and star of Morris, thus why I’m getting into it later), wrote for a little while, than finally settled down to watch an additional four movies in a row, including Parker Posey/Amy Poehler/Rachel Dratch dumb but very funny comedy Spring Breakdown and the surprisingly disappointing Dominic Monaghan/Ron Perlman midnight horror flick I Sell the Dead.

It’s a lot to do, and it usually takes me a couple of days to get my rhythm down so I’m not continually exhausted. Like anything you do that’s worth the effort of doing, it takes a certain bit of stamina to be a SIFF die hard. You don’t get much in the way of sleep, you drink far too much Diet Coke, eat dinners of popcorn and soft pretzels, and end up running madly around from venue to venue with barely any time to spare like a chicken with your head cut off.

Which is exactly the plan today. After sitting down with Dratch to talk about Spring Breakdown (an interview I’m actually kind of giddy for – I love her on “SNL”), it’s another marathon day starting with the locally produced The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, followed up by the apparently charming Paper Heart, changing venues I’m planning on taking in the Spanish comedy Chef’s Special before finally topping it all off with a midnight viewing of the supposedly gory and fun Norwegian shocker Dead Snow (mutant killer Nazi zombies attack – that fact alone makes it a must-see).

It’s a lot do, of course, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being ecstatic about it all. But SIFF has a way of doing that to a person, and for film lovers life doesn’t get any better than this.