In 2008, the Japanese film "Into the Mortician" was released, and in the same year, the film beat the highly popular "Slumdog Millionaire" and won the award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 81st Academy Awards with a dark horse posture.
Thirteen years later, a 4K restored version of the film was released in theaters again. In addition to the meticulous restoration of the film's picture quality, a unique set of film posters has been redesigned, especially the hand-painted painting style, highlighting the artistic value of the film.
Many people say that watching this film 13 years later is completely different from the feelings of 13 years ago, different life experiences, different moods, and will be able to chew out different tastes.
Needless to say, this is a great movie and a great story to tell. The film uses a different angle to interpret the cold topic of death.
The poster of the movie is impressively printed: "The Last Confession of Life", which is full of solemnity and seriousness under such words, although the burial is in a sense just a simple action, that is, to carry the deceased into the coffin.
However, such a profession as a mortician gives this action an extremely solemn sense of ritual, which is related to life and death.
The deceased is soon cremated along with the coffin, and the burial does not change the outcome of death. But the mortician, with an extremely serious attitude and artistic professionalism, retained the truest beauty for the deceased at the last moment in the world.
This seemingly useless and despised profession left the deceased with the last respect and decency. In his own way, the mortician tells people that life and death are the two stages of life. And death is a door, it does not mean the end of life, but through it, into another stage.
Different people, different ages, different experiences, will read different feelings in this movie. At this moment, my feeling is the same as what a short comment on Douban said:
"I don't think this film is about death, or even about reminiscing about nostalgia, but about how a person faces the world's gaze in the face of adversity." From caring about the eyes of others, to finally finding your own value in your work, highly identifying with it, communicating with the world, and forgiving others, so as to achieve self-renewal. ”
In many Japanese films, it is often from the perspective of an ordinary job to interpret the spirit of professional craftsmanship. Just like Ma Diguangye in "The Chronicle of the Boat", he used his decades of time to compile a great dictionary.
In the story of "The Mortician", it is not simply to promote the simple truth that there is no distinction between high and low in occupation, but it is telling us that in each profession itself, we can find the deep meaning of it, find the meaning that can be paid for it, and thus lead people to move forward firmly.
Growing up practicing and growing up, Daigo Kobayashi's ideal may be to become a cellist, and he also dreams of playing and traveling with his wife.
"Anywhere in the world is our new home, traveling the world and taking a playing trip." The couple envisioned such a gorgeous picture.
But he did not want to buy a cello shortly after he took out a loan, his orchestra suddenly announced its dissolution. Losing the job of dreams, carrying huge debts, ideals collapse in the face of reality.
At the moment of selling the cello, Daigo felt relieved and began to suspect that the dream he had been unwavering might not be a dream. At the low point of his life, Daigo met the president and the job of a mortician.
From making a living for money to really liking, from nausea to calm and calm, Daigo has realized the reconciliation of life and self in this work, and has realized the value of life.
A funeral ceremony, in addition to solemnity and seriousness, is more like appreciating an art. Graceful movements, calm between hands and feet, pick up and put down are all appropriately performed. Under this calm and serious attitude, I also vaguely analyze the attitude of life.
And the significance of this job may be to send the greatest comfort to the families of the deceased who are immersed in the grief of the death of their loved ones, to retain the dignity of the deceased, and to give the living inner sympathy. This spiritual comfort is the understanding of life and death, and the reconciliation with the eternal death of relatives.
It is such a great meaning that allows Enlightenment to ignore the contemptuous eyes of the world, to endure the incomprehension of the beloved to himself, to choose to persevere, and to choose to move forward. It is this perseverance and serious attitude that makes all those who have misunderstood this job be equally infected by this greatness after witnessing the burial scene.
The so-called choice of one thing, for the rest of your life, is still because you have found the meaning of the chosen thing to others.
In addition to the male protagonist Daigo Kobayashi, the lady who opens the bathhouse in the film also spent her life running the industry she ran. Although her son bitterly wants her to sell the bathhouse, the hostess knows the significance of this humble bathhouse for the neighbors and precipitates the memories of life on this street. Her perseverance, because of the irreplaceability of this bathhouse, has nothing to do with money, but is of great significance.
Even the uncle in charge of cremation in the funeral home also understood the meaning of life and death in his ordinary work, in the process of decades of ushering and sending.
Daigo's wife advises Daigo not to live a life that is halfway abandoned. Perhaps in her eyes, Daigo abandoned the ideal cello and chose to join the mortician, halfway through. But she didn't know that giving up the courage to live and completely abandoning herself was the real halfway abandonment.
Not every encounter has an ending, but every encounter has meaning. Daigo encountered changes in life and experienced a change from ideal to reality, but no matter what kind of profession, as long as it is given a great meaning, it can give people the strength to continue to move forward, and they can move forward stubbornly without fear of the world's vision. The value of life has never been limited to the original ideal.
Time is the best arrangement, the present is the best present, so there is no need to look back frequently, nor do you have to look forward from time to time, focusing on the meaning of the present, perhaps it is eternity.
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