Departures         (Best Foreign Language film 2009)

Daigo is a cellist in a Tokyo orchestra and has recently bought himself a beautiful expensive new cello but the film opens with him loosing his job as the orchestra is being dissolved.   He quickly decides to sell his cello, leave Tokyo and take his wife and head back to his childhood home, in the countryside, that he inherited from his mother.   In his job search he finds an ad for “Assisting Departures” for a local Agency.  Thinking he is applying for a job at a travel agency he is shocked to discover he has applied for a job to assist the ‘departed’ in the ceremonial procedure of preparing the dead to be placed in their coffin, in front of family members.  While Daigo begins to appreciate how important this role is to the grieving family, he does not share with his wife what his new job is.   This creates its own confusion in their relationship.  It also isolates him from his friends who urge him to do something else. 

While this film is in Japanese and revolves around their customs in dealing with death and mourning, it has a much broader perspective.  How do we view this time of grieving, of saying goodbye to those we love?  How do we sit with this finality of life when there is much left to say to the one we have lost?  

As Daigo opens his heart to look at the pain he carries from the abandonment of his father when he was small, he finds himself opening up a deep tenderness within.   In the midst of sorrow his tenderness allows the family to grieve, to bring their feelings into the open, and for them to begin to let the beautiful memories allow them to have a certain sense of joy as they bit farewell to the family member who has passed away.  

There is so much about how opening the heart begins the healing of our pain.  How honouring others’ journey of pain and grief allows us to honor our own pain and grief.  There is a redemptive quality to all of this, and a beauty.  (This is one of the most beautiful films in recent years.)

Daigo takes out his cello again and when he is not working he heads to the hills and lets the music come and be carried on the wind.  He is healing and finding freedom while at the same time embracing what is within his soul.  He does not allow what others think to stop him from following where his heart is taking him.  He finds that inner truth that indeed sets him free while at the same time he does not judge others who cannot see it as he does.   For a time his wife is so afraid of his work that she leaves but she does return.  There are two exquisite moments in this film.   

The first is where his friend, so opposed to his work, comes to Daigo saying his mother has died and he needs Daigo to perform the sacred preparation of her body.   Daigo so lovingly takes care of this old friend in front of her family and Daigo’s own wife and they all are overwhelmed by this beautiful honouring of life and death together.  Daigo’s wife begins to truly see her husband for the first time. 

The second moment is when Daigo gets word that his estranged father has died and he is asked to come.  His pain of abandonment as a child is still an open wound and he refused to go but his wife persuades him that he must.  Because she has seen the power of this sacred journey she knows that only Daigo can do the honor of  preparing his own father for this final journey.  It is a very poignant moment.    What will love help us do in order to bring healing to others?

A very spiritual film indeed and well worth watching.  The cello music is also deeply moving.

                           submitted by Stephanie Moul

The Ninth Day is available as a DVD at Movie Gallery in Sechelt.

The Ninth Day is a powerful, dialogue driven art house film.  It is German made, with English subtitles, by renown director Volker Schlondorff (Tin Drum).

The movie is an emotionally demanding story which tells the story of Abbe Henri Kremer (Ulrich Matthes), a priest from Luxembourg imprisoned in Dachau by the Nazis for helping the French Resistance.  Based on a true story, it tells how the Nazis give Kremer a nine day furlough, after which he must return to prison unless he can get his bishop to give up his opposition to the Nazi occupation. 

Kremer knows failure to collaborate will endanger his family, and fellow priests still in Dachau.  Matthes is very convincing as a man whose faith is deeply challenged.

Attempting to manipulate the priest, in his collaboration mission, is the suavely confident Gestapo officer Gebhadt (August Diehl).  The scenes between the two men are absorbing because they are evenly matched and the performances are spot on.  Gebhart, it is explained, is a former seminarian who left the church just prior to ordination because he believed he could serve the world better in the guise of an SS officer.

I liked the film mainly because of the two lead performances.  Matthes, particularly, looks the part of a man physically shattered and spiritually conflicted.  It is an intimate film but it raises profound psychological and moral questions.  One dilemma that sticks in my mind is Kremer’s observation that the selfish are always the ones to survive.  If he cares for his own life and renounces everything he believes in does he participate in bringing about greater evil?  How can a decent man navigate his way through life when confronted with the rivers of hell?

The movie uses close ups and the grey drabness of winter in Luxembourg to further show the moral conflict to good effect.
I must recommend that after viewing that you look at the special feature interview with the director.  I found this most helpful in not only explaining aspects of the film but also the director’s reasons for being drawn to the story and its consequences in his own spiritual journey.

Submitted by David Moul