Death does not arrive to sit in your easy chair

Yesterday we watched Departures, the winner of last year's Oscar for best foreign language film. Although it's a better show than a lot of the movies that come up for Oscar consideration, it was no masterpiece.

Departures makes no pretension to be anything bigger than a well-mannered rom-com, except that the main character prepares dead bodies for the casket - he encoffins them. Never mind that we meet him as his personal dream to play cello in a great orchestra evaporates, and that his subsequent freeing of himself from this dream is complicated by his accidental (and somewhat comical) falling into this new occupation, we don't really get to understand, or care deeply for him. We more closely connect with his new boss, the aging encoffiner who also got into this work via the back door, and now lives a pleasant, but lonely life. Here we have a man of will, and who cares little for what others think of his work, except that they think that he does it well. Here we have a man who has insight into people, and though he manages his emotions stoically, he negotiates overwrought situations with a calm sensitivity that causes his clients to respect and thank him deeply. He is that person who you underestimate, even scorn, until you watch him work. Then you wonder why you'd been so blind to his skill. But he's not the centre of the story. Nor is his relationship with his young conscript really at the heart of it, though it could, and should, be.

The story is about the loss of the father. And it is about the relationship between father and son, but this theme only skips in and out of the storyline. We are distracted by the main character's trouble with his own marriage, and with his self-esteem, and with the odd encoffining situations these two get into. In this it reminded me of Sunshine Cleaners (also a movie about cleaning up after death). That's not a bad thing, but Departures has more on the brain than Sunshine Cleaners. It just can't seem to focus on it.

At the end of the movie, when the main character finally confronts the father that deserted him, what should be the most affecting scene, is more of a curiosity. We've never met the father so we don't know how to care about him, or hate him. The main character's anger about his father is too quickly overcome and, frankly, things just all come together too easily. It's a nice movie. Compared to most, I'd even say it's a good one. But the best foreign language film? There are a lot of foreign films out there. And a lot of them are better than this one.

Next up: Natural Born Killers (a little contrast anyone?)

Short ride today: 32 ks (to the 75 and back) Avg 30.10 kph Wind NW 30+ ks