Departures beat out stiff competition at the 2009 Academy Awards to take home the best foreign film gong, trumping the superb Waltz With Bashir and The Class (also excellent), as well as The Baader-Meinhof Complex and Revanche.
On first viewing, I was a little baffled at this choice, but watching Departures a second time I felt more of its joy and humour.
Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is delighted when, after splashing out on a pricey cello, he lands a gig with an orchestra. However it's not long until the orchestra is dissolved and Kobayashi is left unemployed.
Forced to sell his beloved instrument, he moves back to his home town with his wife and into the house his mum left him. Keen to work, he answers a job ad which he thinks is for a travel agency position - in fact, the ad's a misprint and the work is for a different kind of journey altogether.
Under the guidance of his calm boss (brilliantly played by Tsutomu Yamazaki), Kobayashi learns how to prepare corpses ready to go into the coffin, an elaborate ceremony that involves washing the body, applying make-up and wrapping the body in a special kimono.
The detail taken over the ceremonies is amazing - even for a country well known for its love of ritual - and the film certainly honours this unique process.
At times comic and at times moving, Kobayashi's journey from aspiring city slicker cellist to a fulfilled country dweller is a little predictable but on the whole, Departures avoids cliché with its cast of unique characters.
Some of these characters can be a little one-dimensional, like Daigo's smiling, ever-patient wife, but the film takes a warts-and-all approach to life where it can.
Parts of the storytelling were a little uneven, with some scenes of families moved by loss almost cartoonish in their depiction of grief, but this balances out as the film heads towards its climax and we see some real feeling emerging from our leading man.
The themes of family and taking pride in your calling resonate, and the setting is as beautiful as the death rituals that almost feel too personal to be witnessing.
Flashes of humour are occasionally a little off the mark (gags about anal seepage, anyone?) and the middle section could have been cut by about half an hour, but this is ultimately a tale that avoids straying into the realm of sentimentality and warms the cockles of your heart.
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