Who We Were, Part II: Departures

"The world's cities will be our home. Come and tour with me." Thus went the proposal of cellist Daigo Kobayashi to his bride-to-be. Unfortunately, "...reality was harsh," and the beginning of Departures finds Kobayashi jobless after the one orchestra that would hire him disbands. And so, until they can get back on their feet financially, they move to the house in the province of Yamagata that Kobayashi inherited from his mother. 

There aren't a lot of employment opportunities in Yamagata for a professional cellist, so when Kobayashi sees this ad in the newspaper he jumps at the chance.

No age restriction, good salary, short working hours, full-time employee, NK Agent working with departures.

Kobayashi soon finds to his horror that there was an error in the ad and that departures should have read the departed, and that the job consists of casketing or encoffinment. He is appalled at the idea of dealing with dead bodies; however, the large salary, and the lack of other opportunities soon lead him to begin his career as a ceremonial mortician.

In Japan as in the United States, the task of preparing the departed for burial was originally performed by the family, but now it has become the job of professional morticians. There is however, a major difference. Instead of whisking the body out of sight of the grieving family until some mysterious procedure has been performed in secret, the encoffinment is a ritual ceremony performed in the presence of the family and friends. The ceremony is very slow and peaceful. Each movement is thoughtful and respectful of the fact that this body is a part of the father, the mother, the child of the people who are observing the preparation. It is always easy to imagine that in our mortuaries, the bodies of the deceased are manipulated in some way that we don't even want to imagine, but there is none of that here. Everything is beautiful, and though it is sad, the families are quietly brought to a peaceful place.

In Departures, we see how Kobayashi gradually comes to that place of peace himself; however, he still has to contend with the misunderstandings of those around him, especially that of his wife. His profession is considered disgraceful, and it is a long time before he can tell his wife the truth about his job. He has to endure the contempt of his neighbors, too, but he doesn't let them dissuade him.

 Along with the main narrative of the movie, there is the story of Kobayashi's relationship, or lack of relationship with his father. He cannot even remember his father's face, only his desertion. This tale unwinds slowly in the background of the movie like the haunting music of Kobayashi's cello. 

The movie is not without flaws. It begins with a comic scene that I think would have been better placed later in the movie, and some of conversations that Kobayashi has with his boss are a bit incomprehensible to me. And then, after the ceremony, the bodies are cremated, although this is understandable since this is a crowded and mostly non-Christian country. However, it seems like a curtailment of what so far has been a process that is very much in accord with nature.

Watching this movie, I can't help but remember the day that my mother died. She was sitting in a chair in her apartment, and while my sister and I sat, and waited for the funeral home to come take her away, it was just like many other days that the three of us had sat together visiting. I wished more than anything that we could just take her in the bedroom and lay her out ourselves. It seemed so much more the right thing to do. Why do we give these personal. loving tasks over to other people?

Neither Departures nor Still Life is a religious film. Both Daigo Kobayashi and John May perform their offices for people of all faiths or none. Nonetheless, both of these movies seem to speak of a view of taking care of the dead that shows much more understanding of the reality of the value of our bodies than the notions of many Christians. Our bodies are not just disposable shells for our souls. They have played an integral part in every moment of our lives: all our joys and sorrows, all our loves and hatreds, every fear, every Sacrament. Between the time of our loved ones' deaths and their burials, they are still with us in a very real way, and if we spend this brief period with that in mind, it can help us move more peacefully into the time to come.

AMDG

Who We Were, Part I: Still Life

Still Life is the story of John May, a man whose job it is to find the relatives or friends of those who have died alone, and failing that, to arrange for their funeral and burial, and this he does. He searches untiringly for the smallest clue that might lead him to someone who cares about the deceased. When this proves impossible, or when the relative doesn't want to have anything to do with the funeral, John does what he can to provide a fitting funeral. If the deceased had a religious affiliation, he finds the appropriate place of worship for the funeral; he chooses music that the deceased liked based on the things he finds in his home; he writes lovely eulogies; and then he attends the funeral service and burial.

Unfortunately, this is a slow process and the powers-that-be are unhappy with the amount of time and money John spends on these anonymous people who aren't there (so says his boss) and don't care. And nobody cares--except for John. Soon after the movie begins two things happen that transform John's world. First, he gets called to the apartment that is directly across the street from his. In this apartment he finds poverty and squalor, but he also finds the remains of the life that has been lived within view of his own window. Second, his boss informs him that in an attempt to economize, his department is being merged with another, and he is being let go. His boss gives him three days to wrap up this last case, and then he will have, "an opportunity for a new life."

As the movie progresses, we are met on every side by lonely, isolated people--the people who would have eventually ended up in John's purview. We meet them living quiet, seemingly normal lives, but without any real contact with others. They live in quiet suburbs, in senior homes, or on the street. As I watched the movie, I kept hearing Eleanor Rigby  in the back of my head--all the lonely people indeed.

Still Life is in many ways a profoundly sad movie, but it is a radiantly beautiful movie. It is full of light, both physical and metaphorical. Some of the scenes seem to glow. The real light, however, comes from John's realization that even these unknown lonely lives have value. He also knows that our bodies are not just leftover packaging to be thrown away, but part of our very selves. And perhaps his knowledge comes from the fact that he is himself one of these lonely, isolated people.

Like John May, this movie is very quiet and understated. Athough the topic of the movie is serious, there is a quiet humor throughout the film. I would highly recommend this film to anyone who likes thoughtful movies. I think it may turn out to be one of my 10 or 15 favorites.

AMDG

P. S. Trying to discover why this post is getting so many visits, I find that it is linked to the First Things blog. If you are new here, welcome, look around, feeling free to comment.

The Reign in Spain, Part I

We have watched at least three movies that take place in Spain lately. This wasn't something that was planned. I didn't even realize that it had happened until we were watching the last one. While the three movies are very different, there are some similarities: two take place during the Spanish Civil War, two tell the story of fathers and sons who are estranged, all of them are informed by grace.

One was There Be Dragons, which I've had lying next to the TV for a long time--months. I got the movie from Netflix because I thought I ought, and although I've been disappointed in so many "Catholic" movies. I kept waiting to be in the right frame of mind to watch it, and then I read some really bad reviews, well, I guess what I really read were people talking about really bad reviews, and so I put it off even longer, but when my youngest daughter was home last month, and she said it was pretty good, I decided to give it a try. What I expected was hagiography and found very little of that, mostly because it wasn't so much a biography of Josemaria Escrivá as it was a portrayal of the culture of Life versus the culture of Death.

It begins from the point of view of Robert Torres, a journalist who is writing a book about Escrivá, and who has returned to Spain to visit his estranged father, Manolo, who grew up in the same village as Escrivá. Soon, we are hearing the story in Manolo's voice. Manolo and Josemaria were friends when they were boys. Manolo was the son of a wealthy man, and Josemaria's father owned a chocolate factory, but thankfully was nothing like Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp. The friendship ends when Josemaria's father loses the factory, and from there the boys follow two rapidly diverging paths: one which leads to a selfishly misguided love, war, and death, and the other to the selfless love that always brings life.

I don't know how accurate the portrayal of Josemaria Escrivá is, because I really don't know much about him except that he founded Opus Dei. I liked him better than I thought I would. I read a bit of The Way, and found it joyless, but maybe I haven't read enough of his writing to make a fair judgement. If anything, the movie has made me want to read more. The one thing I know about Opus Dei is that the one person I know who is a member is absolutely delightful.

And speaking of The Way, another movie that we watched was this chronicle of the pilgrimage of Tom Avery (Martin Sheen) on the Camino de Santiago. Like Manolo, Tom is estranged from his son Daniel (Emilio Estevez). The breach occurred when Daniel decided to abandon his studies for his Masters degree in Archaeology? Anthropology?, something like that, and go out to really experience the countries he had been studying. As the movie begins, Tom receives a call from France saying that Daniel has died in the Pyrenees at the beginning of his pilgrimage on the Camino. Tom goes to collect the body, and instead ends up making the pilgrimage for Daniel, carrying Daniel's ashes in a box and leaving them along the way. 

Along the way, Tom meets a young Danish man, Yoost, who ostensibly is walking the Camino in order to lose weight before a wedding. Yoost is like a large, tactless puppy dog who, much to Tom's dismay, attaches himself firmly to Tom for the rest of the pilgrimage. Further on they meet Sarah, a woman who is carrying a heavy burden of her own, and Jack, a travel writer who is writing a book about the Camino. As the movie progresses, we learn more about them, and the rest of their story, while engaging and well-presented, moves on to a fairly predictable end.

But the real star of this movie is the Camino de Santiago. It seemed that way to me, and when I was looking on Wikipedia to make sure of the characters' names, I saw that this was true. In a way, it's documentary or travelogue dressed like a movie, but it's done so professionally and so well that the viewer is rarely aware of the fact. There are a couple of times when it's obvious, for instance when the Captain who is returning Daniel's belongings to Tom displays the pilgrim's passport and explains it in detail, but usually this is not the case. The viewer travels along the Camino through mountains and fields, across lovely little bridges. He learns about aubergues and sees the towns along the way. My one objection is that the movie doesn't really give one an idea of the physical difficulty of the pilgrimage, and I think that this might be a disservice to those who are lured to the Camino by the beauty of the film.

There is not a great deal of talk about faith or grace in the movie but there is enough, I think, and it is evident in the struggles of the characters. And, of course, there is the arrival at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where none of the four companions are left unmoved, and it must be very moving to put your hand into the deep handprint left by thousands and thousands of pilgrims over hundreds of years or to watch this.



I was very moved by the whole movie. I think I cried my way through most of it, but that just might have to do with its connection to my own current sense that I am on some sort of pilgrimage. I'm afraid that in saying that the movie is really a travelogue, it sounds like I am somehow demeaning it, but I'm not. I would recommend this movie to anyone.

I was going to include the third movie here, but I think this post is long enough, and it might take me a while to write the next part, so I thought I'd go ahead and post this much today.

AMDG

Life, Death, and Reconciliation: The Descendants and Gran Torino

I've watched two movies in the last couple of weeks that have a lot in common: the death of a mother, the alienation of a father from his children, a re-engagement with life, and an eventual reconciliation. There are also many differences between the two. One mother has been a good and faithful wife; the other has not. One takes place in a declining working-class neighborhood; the other is set in luxurious locations in Hawaii. One leaves the viewer with a sense of hope; the other leaves him thinking, "Well, that's nice, but what happens next?

The Descendants' Matt King has been so busy with his law practice and the handling of his family's hereditary estate on Kauai that he hasn't had much time for his family. Now his wife, Alexandra, is in a coma in the hospital after a boating accident and he hopes that when she recovers, he can begin to make up for past mistakes. Before very long we learn two things: she's been having an affair with someone whom she wants to marry, and she is going to die. Throughout the rest of the movie, Matt and his 16 and 10 year old daughters try to come to terms with Alexandra's life and death, and to rebuild their relationship with one another. In the end they succeed, and the final scene shows the three of them snuggling together on the couch, eating popcorn and watching TV.

It's a beautiful (scenically), well-made movie and the actors play their parts well, but there is an emptiness throughout the movie. After Alexandra dies, there is a scene in which Matt and his daughters take her ashes out in a canoe and dump them into the ocean. There's an "is that all there is?" feel to the scene. She was alive and now she's gone, and that seems to be it. There's no promise of anything beyond this life, and one wonders what can possibly hold the family together now.

When my friend Amy told me that I should watch Gran Torino, I thought, "A car movie?" Then when she said that was a Clint Eastwood movie, I thought, "Really? Wasn't his last movie about euthanasia?" However, she then said the magic words which will get me to watch most anything, "It's really Catholic."

The movie opens with the funeral of Walt Kowalski's wife. Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) stands stern and unmovable as guests file by the casket. During the funeral, the young priest, Fr. Janovich, gives a rather pat homily that might do for a family whose faith is important to them, but is powerless to touch or console Dorothy Kowalski's family. It becomes quickly obvious that there is only the most tenuous of relationships between Walt and his two sons and their families, and that this is unlikely to change.

Walt is a Korean War veteran and he is angry. The world around him is changing and he doesn't like the changes. His neighborhood is now filled with Hmong refugees. He has nothing to say to his neighbors and they have nothing to say to him. So, he sits on his porch, drinking beer and scowling at the world.

Not only is Walt unhappy with his neighbors, but Fr. Janovich is making his life difficult. Father made a promise to Dorothy that he would get Walt to go to Confession, and he is determined to keep his promise. I like this character. He is naive and sometimes gauche, but he is also brave and faithful

Events conspire to involve Walt in the lives of his next door neighbors, a young woman named Sue and her brother Thao. It's his growing affection for these two young people and the wider Hmong community that brings Walt back into the land of the living. It's his efforts to help Thao find his way in the world and escape the clutches of the gang that is trying to recruit him that bring him to the point where he must face the demons of his years in Korea, and risk everything to save his friends.

Unlike The Descendants, Gran Torino is filled with hope. In fact, the characters in one way or other display all the virtues, both theological and cardinal. It's a bit rougher around the edges (Oh, who could imagine Clint Eastwood rough around the edges?), but it tells a story of true reconciliation.

One warning, is that Gran Torino is filled with language that will manage to offend almost everyone. It's not only crude, it's decidedly not PC. I don't find this as offensive, though, as the language of the daughters in The Descendants. It's very irritating, but it's pretty much what we have come expect from children in movies nowadays.

AMDG