In Japanese with English subtitles. 130 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Two showings: 2:00 PM & 6:45 PM
Out-of-work cellist Daigo Kobayashi moves back to his hometown with his wife. He accepts a position working in "departures", which he assumes is a travel agency, only to discover that it is a company which prepares corpses for funerals according to ancient Japanese ritual. At first, Daigo conceals the nature of his job — which he regards with shame and disgust — from his family, but gradually he begins to value the service he is doing for the departed and for their grieving loved ones. Departures was loosely based on the autobiographical book Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician. It won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
