In the Presence of Death

Film: Departures (130min)

Shochiku, Distributor

Produced by Yasuhiro Mase

Released: 2008 (Japan)

Film: Bucket List (97min)

Warner Brothers Pictures, Distributor

Produced by Craig Zadan, Neil Meron, Alan Greisman, and Rob Reiner

Released: 2008 (USA)

Death in movies is not unusual. Dying happens as part of dramatic plots all too routinely, and most viewers have become blasé about movie-ized death. Some films, however, focus our attention a little more sharply on the inevitability of this event that most of us would rather not face in real life. Departures (winner of an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2008) and Bucket List are two such films. Both were films I initially turned away from seeing. Departures sounded like a real downer; Bucket List looked like the stereotypical “grab all the gusto” approach to facing death. My assumptions turned out to be wrong about both.

In Departures, the topic of death is initially objectified and held at a distance. By the end of the film, death has become more personal. Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a young aspiring cellist in Tokyo and is deep in debt from the purchase of a new cello. When the orchestra that has just hired him suddenly closes down, he is left with no choice but to sell his cello and move with his new wife to a rural village where his parents once owned a small coffee shop. (We also learn at this point that Daigo’s father left with another woman when Daigo was five and never had contact with Daigo again; and that Daigo’s mother died 2 years ago.) Daigo and his wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue), move into the attached dwelling and he searches for a new job. He answers an ad for something called “departures,” thinking it is a travel-agency position. He is immediately hired and only the next day discovers that the ad had a typo in it. It was supposed to read “the departed.” He has been hired, it turns out, to assist in preparing bodies for “encoffinment,” which involves the ritual of washing, dressing, and applying make up to the body in the presence of family and friends of the deceased. When he learns about the nature of the work, he decides to leave, but his employer encourages him to stay. The employer is a kindly man and the pay is good, so Daigo decides to stay on.

We are introduced to the encoffinment ritual with some clever humor. One of Daigo’s first assignments is to play the role of a deceased person undergoing encoffinment for a training video his employer is having made. We see him being shaved (and accidentally nicked!) by his employer. With its inherent humor, this scene allows us to adjust to the unusual and off-putting nature of the subject. In subsequent scenes, we see Daigo learning to accept and then appreciate the encoffinment ritual.

Ever since humans gained the ability to be self-reflective, death has been a puzzlement. The need to make sense of it and face it became, and remains, a source of religious and cultural ritual. Helping the living face death by literally putting a face on the dead and making them acceptable to their loved ones is part of Daigo’s job as an encoffiner.

It soon becomes clear, however, that the role of encoffiner is not highly regarded by the general public, and Daigo refrains from telling his wife about the nature of his work, letting her believe instead that he is working for a travel agency. When she discovers a copy of the training video that he is in, the truth comes out. She is repulsed by the thought of him doing this work, and asks him to quit. Daigo, by now seeing the value of his work for the mourning relatives and friends of the deceased, does not want to quit. Mika cannot overcome her repulsion to the work her husband is doing and decides to leave and go home to her family. Daigo continues with his new profession, and we see short glimpses of the many ways that families respond to the death of a loved one.

After a few months, Mika returns. Happily reunited, she tells Daigo that she is pregnant. She again asks Daigo to leave his work, suggesting that their future child’s friends will laugh because of what Daigo does. Before they can process this new stalemate, Daigo is called to perform an encoffinment for an older woman in the community whom he has known and liked from when he was a child. Because Mika also knew and liked her, she goes with him to the ceremony. When she sees the sensitivity and grace with which Daigo performs the encoffinment ritual, and the meaning it has for the family, she suddenly realizes the value of Daigo’s work. Much of this is conveyed, like so many other things in the film, through glances, graceful nods, and subtle facial expressions. Much of the film’s strength lies in this kind of visual presentation of its story.

The film has an emotive ending that provides a resolution to one of the undercurrents running through it—that of Daigo’s ongoing resentment of his father for abandoning him as a child. The ending scenes powerfully build on the main themes in the film and reaffirm the emotional bonds of generational life.

In contrast to the graceful restraint that characterizes Departures, the American film, Bucket List, tackles life’s end with more brass and heavy handedness. Two strangers facing a diagnosis of terminal cancer share the same hospital room. Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) is a billionaire, having made his fortune, ironically, in the health care industry. His policy of economized health care (“I run hospitals, not health spas. Two beds to a room; no exceptions!”) is what ultimately places him in a shared room, much to his chagrin. His “roommate,” Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman), is a car mechanic whose dream of becoming a history professor was derailed by an early marriage and the need to provide for a family.

The two men initially banter with each other and then develop a supportive relationship. When Edward finds a discarded “bucket list” started and then abandoned by Carter, he suggests that they make it a joint list and then go out and do the things on the list while they are still able. (Both are asymptomatic, feeling few effects of the cancer growing inside them.) Hesitant at first, Carter finally accepts his new billionaire acquaintance’s offer.

Starting with the obligatory skydive, they proceed to tick off the more materialistic items on the list. This part of the film, although mildly entertaining, is stereotypically “gusto grabbing” and often pushes the limits of credibility. I soon found myself critiquing the premise that the film seemed to be holding forth: living fully before you die is having the money to private jet yourself and a companion around the world to see all the exotic hot spots. Eventually though, the film delivers a well-played shift when Carter attempts to set up a meeting between Edward and his long-estranged and only daughter. Edward (who we have come to see, has shielded himself throughout his life from emotional attachments) becomes extremely angry. Some of the best lines in the film are delivered by Nicholson in this scene: “I built a billion dollar business up from nothing. Presidents have asked my advice. I have dined with royalty. And I’m supposed to make out that this trip was supposed to mean something to me? That it was going to change me? This was supposed to be fun. That’s all it ever was.” The scene is a game changer in the film. Without it and the highly emotional scenes that follow it, Bucket List would be another shallow film cliché on facing death with bravado.

Contrary to his protestations, Edwards has been changed by his extended encounter with Carter. And Carter has also been changed. “My wife says that I left, a stranger, and came back, a husband.” The last quarter of the film reveals these changes in both men and is much more satisfying than the experience bagging scenes that precede it. Near the end of the film, Edward says: “He saved my life. And he knew it before I did. I’m deeply proud that this man found it worth his while to know me. In the end, I think it’s safe to say that we brought some joy to one another’s lives.”

Both films help us see that even when we face the presence of death, death happens in the presence of the living.