Week 11: Departures

The movie departures capture death in the most beautiful and elegant way for people to say goodbye to the ones they love. I find it hard to relate to the community where death is such a taboo topic. This is because, in my culture and religion, we are often reminded of death and the importance of leaving this world in a peaceful manner. One would be reminded of the mortality of oneself thus a sense or urge to achieve and become a better person for ourselves, other people and God strengthen. This is how I embrace and live to die and be remembered.

I understood why it may be a taboo topic. Death itself seems scary and back then was associated with illnesses and old age. However now, any people at any age can die even without a disease. Why? I think lifestyle (stress) and food plays a major role. As the world progress, complexity and stress have become a norm and that may be unhealthy to a certain extent. However, due to exposure, education, and awareness, people have become more open. Just like in the movie, Mika actually opposed Daigo's career until she herself witness the process. This reminded me of my own experience with a past relationship that ended due to the stereotype that was attached to the career I was pursuing, which psychologist meant working with crazy people. However, because Mika really loved Daigo, she came back to him in the end, which sadly is not the same case for my relationship.

Nevertheless, I could relate to how people grief when one of their family members or close friends pass away. The saddest moment in this movie, in my opinion, was not when Daigo's father passed away. However, it was when he could not recognize his father's face after years of planting the memory at the back of his mind, yet still holding on from a string of hope. In my opinion, memories are what makes people grief. The thought that you can no longer create memories with that person and the possibility of losing the existing memory of you and that person scares people- I felt that when Daigo finally recognizes his father.

I lost my uncle due to a heart attack. My cousin was fifteen and two weeks away from her PMR. She also had just about to begin to have a good relationship with her father just a few months before he passed away. Hence, his death took a big toll on her- she grieved in a way where she would not speak of him at all, only, but cry at night because she knew she did not have many memories of him and knowing she could not create new ones, made it worse.

Humans often take advantage of other peoples' presence in their life. Death, however, in my opinion, reminds human that anything could be taken away at any time. Hence, it allows people to appreciate one another. Thus, when the chance we had was not properly used, this is when conflict and anger happen when death falls upon a person. From the movie, it can be observed that many families initially responded negatively because they were in denial. This is normal because people go through the stages of grief.

Other than that, everything in life is planned by God. It does not just so happen that Daigo was a musician who turned out to be an encoffiner. Musicians in general, are very in touch with their emotions. Encoffiner as well needs to have high empathy and be in touch with their emotions as their job requires them to not only be tough for the grieving family but as well to perform the process with the emotions.

Therefore, as a musician myself, I understood why Daigo was still willing to do the job even though his wife threatens to leave the house. It was not only for altruism and the loaded salary. Encoffiner somehow is an artistic expression of saying goodbye, where the audience is the family or friends of the dying person. The emotional connection between the encoffiner and the family or friends are somewhat similar to when a musician plays their heart out at a show. Both would experience the same emotions through music, or empathy of the dying person.

In my opinion, it was brilliant how the scriptwriter of this movie was able to capture meaningfulness in that sense. All in all, I feel that this movie was really well thought and beautiful. It captures the essence of life and death beautifully.