Beijing is beginning to enter late autumn again, and the ginkgo and maple trees on the side of the road have been dyed with brilliant colors, standing in the autumn sun, looking particularly warm.
At such a time, going to the cinema to brush "Entering the Mortician" twice is like listening to a melodious classical music, which flows with fine warmth and emotion.
I remember the first time I watched this movie was in 2018, when I was still working in Changsha, the Qingming Festival did a topic related to the funeral industry, in order to know more about this industry, I watched "Entering the Mortician", at that time, I only had the awe of the profession of the Mortician.
Now, seeing the tears of people crying when they bid farewell to their relatives in the film, the protagonist recalling his childhood with his father in the somber cello sound, and he gave up his dream and found his own value again, I shed tears several times.
Cellist who "breaks free from dreams" and gentle and devout mortician
At the beginning of the film, the protagonist Kobayashi Daigo drives on a snow-covered road, surrounded by a white expanse, silent, obscure, and making people unable to distinguish the direction.
With the quiet snow scenery, Daigo looked worried and worried, thinking about the uneasiness he had felt since he returned to his hometown from Tokyo for two months.
And so the story begins.
Daigo has been practicing the cello since kindergarten, and when he grew up, he became a cellist as he wished, working in an orchestra in Tokyo, and was a "child with a show" that his elders often talked about.
However, the orchestra suddenly disbanded, and Daigo lost his job, and he had to sell the expensive instrument he had just bought for a long time. Remembering the vow he had made to his wife when he was married, "Anywhere in the world is our new home, travel the world, let's have a playing trip", he fell into sorrow.
Seeing this, I can't help but think of Kitajima's "Polish Visitor": "At that time, we had dreams, about literature, about love, about traveling through the world." Now we drink late at night, and when the cups touch together, it's the sound of broken dreams. ”
Ending dreams and admitting that "you can't" is tough for most people. However, Daigo walked out of the musical instrument shop, as if he had broken free from the shackles of many years, and he felt a sense of relief.
It is easy for us to praise and envy those who pursue the ultimate "no madness" and "no madness" to pursue the ultimate, but it is difficult to accept those who admit that they cannot and compromise with reality.
"The dream I've been chasing may never have existed." When Daigo said these words, I was deeply touched by his calmness.
From the time Daigo suffered unemployment to selling his musical instrument and returning to his hometown, he always behaved peacefully, even if it was sad, it was also a calm sadness. This calm, gentle tone may have foreshadowed that he would be a good mortician in the future.
Some Douban netizens recalled the scene of their deceased relatives being treated roughly before they died, and could not help but sigh: "In this world, rough is the way most ordinary people treat others, we are treated roughly, and then treat others roughly, which seems to have become a cycle, most people have been numb and unconscious. So, in a world where even the living cannot be treated gently, let alone respect for the dead. ”
And Kobayashi Daigo, who became a mortician, was so devout in the face of the deceased. When seeing Daigo gently hold the hands of the deceased, put on The Buddha beads for them, and put on clean makeup, the audience can fully realize that this is a profession that gives the deceased dignity and peace of mind.
Death can be holy, and love and separation are not necessarily contradictory
We have always been afraid of death. The ancient emperor asked the immortals, and the people who ate fasts and prayed the Buddha all conveyed to the people that death is terrible, desperate, and painful, and that they must do everything possible to stay away from it.
So we are also particularly taboo in our daily lives to talk about death, some people die, the elders say "gone", "gone" or "gone", is not to say "dead".
Death was seen as unlucky, and even morticians who worked with the remains were particularly repulsive.
In the film, people think that the person who becomes a mortician is atonement for his sins he has committed before, even Daigo himself thought so at first. His wife, Mika, felt that he was not clean, and returned to her mother's house in a huff.
But after one burial ceremony after another, Daigo went from seeing the corpses nauseous and vomiting at the beginning, to finally being able to truly enter the profession and find self-worth in it.
At the same time, when the film tells about death, it does not give people a feeling of darkness, horror, and heaviness, but constantly shows the audience that death is beautiful and holy.
Standing on the bridge, Daigo saw the salmon in the water working hard against the current, just to run to death, and issued a puzzlement: "It's really sad, desperately swimming up is to die, anyway, death is still so hard." ”
The uncle who was working on the cremation of the remains passed by and replied, "They want to go home, they want to go back to their birthplace." ”
Not only do people have the long-cherished wish of returning fallen leaves to their roots, but salmon also have them. Death and life are equally important, and both deserve to be done to the best of their ability.
After the funeral of Grandma in the bathhouse, a group of white swans took off under the vast blue sky, making people feel as if death had opened a door, the world behind the door was clear and peaceful, and everything was still lovely.
Seeing wave after wave of people saying affectionate goodbyes to their loved ones next to the remains, we have reason to believe that love and separation are not necessarily contradictory in a long life.
At the end of the film, Daigo Kobayashi receives the news of the death of his father, who has not been seen for thirty years, and looking at his father's body, Daigo's previous resentment and incomprehension of his father begin to become complicated.
Just when Daigo began to bury his father, he saw the stone he had given to his father when he was a child, and the moment the stone fell, the knot that had been in his heart for many years was finally dissolved. In the face of affection and farewell, all misunderstandings and sorrows may not be worth mentioning.
The most immersive part of the film is that at the end, Daigo plays the cello in the wilderness, the sun is shining, the sky is long, the snowy mountains stand at the end of the plain, and the long and deep sound of the cello seems to penetrate the mountains and rivers.
Daigo let go of his attachment to the cello dream and let go of his father's knot, and all that remained of his life was relief, which infected every audience in front of the screen.