Departures

A lot of buzz about this movie as this movie just won one of the highest award for non-english movie, academy awards for best foreign language. I try to drag my friends to watch this movie, but none really want to give this try, because of the theme and japanese movie. I usually do not prefer Japanese movie either, even the high-rated "Death Note", I am not interested to watch at all. However, with all the so good review of this movie, I went alone (how sad..) to watch with quite high expectation that this movie will be able to squeeze my heart and tear. 

This movie is about Daigo Kobayashi, desperate to find a job after his orchestra group is dissolved, landed himself a job to take care of the "departed", which is mispelled as departures in the job ads. The story revolves how he learns to appreciate the job that most people look down, including his wife that leaves him after she found out the job. It shows in detail, how the corpse is taken care in such precision, graceful, and sense of art, to show last respect to the deceased. The acting is good, especially the main actor, Masahiro Motoki. In short, this movie is beautifully done and touching. Although I don't really found myself with tear, I can hear some people sobbing at the back. I don't think it's a very heart-wrenching movie, but meaningful. Given running time of more than 2 hours, it is not really a boring movie, although I think it can be shorter. 3.5 of 5.