After 13 years, the Japanese movie "Entering the Mortician" landed on the big screen in China.
It tells the hardest part of death, how to say goodbye, and how to face death head-on. That's why it won the 2008 Oscar for foreign language films, and in retrospect, this victory is by no means a curiosity about the wonders of the East, but a recognition of the region or culture.
▲ Poster of the movie "The Mortician"
<h1 class = "pgc-h-center-line" > "The Mortician" is popular all over the world, and it proves one thing, in the face of death, not only East Asian society, but all mankind has entered the same dilemma, taboo, fear, and helplessness. Modern medicine has prolonged the ongoing state of aging, dying and illness, so more than ever, we need to face death again and re-explore ways to say goodbye to life. </h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" > farewell</h1>
More than a decade later, I don't have much memory of "The Mortician". The only thing I remember is a farewell scene.
In the film, the family laughs at the deceased in the coffin, they kiss his cheek, print a red lip print, they thank him, and wave goodbye to him.
▲ In "The Mortician", the family kisses the deceased's face and says goodbye to him
In solemnity, there is no lack of humor.
I often think of my grandmother, of the last time I saw her.
The cancer cells in her lungs had spread throughout her body, and she could not speak, only a faint breath in her mouth, but she still struggled to sit up. She took a stack of money out of her pocket and sneaked it into me. I held her hand, and more than a decade later I still remember the touch of that moment, like a piece of plastic skin wrapped around a finger bone, not ironed at all, slightly cold. I remember the way she couldn't speak, and she gasped and shed tears.
That night, my mother's cry woke me up from my sleep.
Mother said that Grandma had held out for so long, just to wait for you to come back