Author(s): Takita Yojiro

Foreign Film

Rated M Suitable for Mature Audiences 16 years and over Japanese with English subtitles 131 mins Daigo Kobayashi is a cellist whose orchestra has been dissolved. Unemployed, he and his wife return to his home town where he answers a job ad entitled Departures presuming it is for a travel agent. He discovers to his horror that the ad is actually for the contemptible job of nokanshi, a funerary celebrant who prepares bodies for entry into the next life, and Daigo must reconcile this new role with his dreams for the future.