Text | Love cat novelist
The first time I saw "The Mortician" was in the autumn of my freshman year, and in the blink of an eye, I had a 4K restored re-release of it in the fall of six years later.
It evoked memories of my once less boring college, filled with moods like a silky breeze drifting in the window, not cold but enough to keep people awake.
Now that autumn in Beijing is coming at a rapid pace, this feeling is once again filled, the leaves on the street are falling in large pieces, and the maple leaves are red all over the mountain, and I am sitting in the cinema again, feeling the satisfaction of this movie.
In modern society, I am genuinely comforted by such a profession.
I hope that you who click on this article can resonate and read it slowly.
One
The last time you see the deceased, you always have to be decent
"Entering the Mortician Division", based on the novel "The Diary of Na Coffin" by Japanese writer Shinmon Aoki, is directed by Yojiro Takita and co-starred masahiro Motoki, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Ryoko Hiromi, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, and Takashi Sasano. The film was released in Japan on September 10, 2008.
The film has won the highest award at the 32nd Montreal International Film Festival in Canada, the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the 81st Academy Awards, and the Best Asian Film at the 29th Hong Kong Film Awards.
On October 29 this year, the 4K restored version of "The Mortician" was released in Chinese mainland.
The whole story is mainly about cellist Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) who loses his job due to the dissolution of the band. He and his wife, Mika (Ryoko Hiromi), leave Tokyo and return to their hometown of Yamagata Prefecture. However, even in Yamagata, it is difficult to find a job without Daigo, who is good at practical skills.
Subsequently, "there is no age limit, high salary guaranteed, and the actual working time is extremely short." Hire a Journey Assistant. An eye-catching job advertisement attracted Daigo, but when he rushed to the NK office with the advertisement, he learned that "Ah, that is misleading, we are looking for someone to work as an assistant to someone who goes to that world." The owner of the office, Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki), explains the nature of the work to Daigo, and the so-called "journey assistant" is actually the mortician, who is responsible for putting the body into a coffin and putting makeup on it, and sending the deceased away with dignity.
Daigo hesitated for a long time, but still accepted the job. He vaguely tells Mika that he is a wedding and funeral assistant, which makes her mistakenly think that she is a wedding assistant.
The demon youth, the mother who left her young daughter dead, and the grandfather who died with countless kiss marks, in the midst of various deaths, Daigo gradually fell in love with the job of mortician.
When Mika learns the truth, she argues with him, apparently disagreeing with the job, and the film enters the climax of the story. The saddest sentence I remember was one that came out of my wife's mouth: "Don't touch me, I don't think you're clean." ”
That suffocating, helpless feeling welled up in his mind, and looking at Daigo's expression, it was obvious how eager he was for his loved ones to approve of the job, rather than to be so disgusted.
At that time, it was estimated that not many people could understand the job, let alone the wife of Daigo in the movie.
The director expresses this resonance in the language of the film, expressing the attitude towards death, expressing the comfort of the soul, and allowing the audience to know and understand this profession as much as possible.
At the end of the film, people were touched and accepted, it was Daigo who made a funeral for his father, and the male protagonist remembered his father's face at this time and recalled the happy picture of a family of three. He felt his father's love, just as his wife truly understood himself.
This is the part that Japanese films are best at dealing with feelings, overlapping rhythm and feelings, and conflicting with events to make the whole story three-dimensional.
So when it is re-screened, one of the reasons why it must be worth revisiting is that in today's environment, I want everyone to abandon the indifference as always and feel the temperature it brings.
"Parting is a lesson that everyone's life cannot avoid." Director Yojiro Takita had such a comment on Douban on the occasion of the re-screening, hoping that everyone could re-understand the deep meaning of this when the film was re-released.
"The Mortician" is to let us complete the necessary lesson with the sadness of parting; to accept the last side of the deceased in the chaotic world.
Two
"When someone dies, my work begins."
Mentioning "The Mortician", I have to think of a Korean drama that received high praise this year: "Move to Heaven: I Am a Relic Sorter".
Maybe its story concept is different from "The Mortician", and there is a slight sense of the same feeling about death.
Its synopsis says: There is a story behind every death, and we will tell these untold stories to pass on, and now, let us assist you on your final journey.
"Move to Heaven: I Am a Relic Finisher" has a total of ten episodes, each episode is 45 minutes, Netflix exclusive planning, has been broadcast in the first half of this year, although the splash is not large, but the rating after the ending is stable at 9.1, it is worth watching, absolutely touching the depths of the heart.
Its setting is different from the popular urban drama, the two protagonists are a former offender who has no expectations for the world, and the other is a disabled youth suffering from Asperger's disease (autism), and the two together set up the "Heaven Migration" relic sorting company, in this special work, gradually understand the story of life and death.
If "The Mortician" is to help the deceased's family to gain comfort by dressing up the deceased's decent appearance and costumes, restoring their original appearance, then "Move to Heaven: I Am a Relic Sorter" is to help the deceased complete the dying wishes while collecting the relics, so as to soothe the wounded soul.
In the play, such social issues appear heavy, and the good and evil of human nature are expressed, leaving as much warmth as possible to the living, and not giving too much sharp preaching to the evil.
In the portrayal of life and death, it is silent cruelty.
Workers who work hard but are not treated in time for work injuries; solitary people who die alone at home for several days before being found; passers-by who are eventually killed when they encounter perverted entanglements; elderly couples who die together in the dusk...
Move to Heaven: I Am a Relic Sorter is in "Exposing the Evil that Exists in the World by Leaving Man's Goodwill."
In such a big world, hurrying through, we have never learned to stop and look, nor have we learned to say goodbye.
Who can not abhor death, and who can completely withdraw from the grief of the loss of a loved one?
These stories tell us that everyone deserves to record their lives well, and to say goodbye as much as possible in the face of the end of life, which is not just what professionals can do.
Three
The last confession of life
We are only facing death briefly, and their work has only just begun.
It's an ordinary job that's not accepted by most people.
For example, once watching the plot in "Forensic Qin Ming" in which the protagonist ridiculed no one dared to be intimate with himself, he felt that the sacred profession of Mingming actually had to suffer from the blank eyes of ordinary people, could it be that the first person who could help the victim "speak" was not a forensic doctor? Only they can find the real culprit behind the scenes.
There was also an interview I had seen before, which was also about a forensic documentary, and she ended up working at a DNA testing center, but many people said that her work was to destroy family harmony.
But often go to her for testing, is it not from their own doubts, did not come to her?
There are many people who do not understand these industries, but because of the existence of these industries, we have traces of life, and because of the existence of these people, life will not appear so thin.
Some jobs, never want to be understood, but in the know that they will have to pay for it all their lives, they still want even one person to stand by their side.
This is the meaning of the film and television drama.
"The Mortician" sorts out the remains of the deceased and bids farewell to the world with dignity;
"Move to Heaven: I Am a Relic Sorter" organizes the belongings of the deceased and fulfills their wishes.
The dead could not speak, but could only find traces of their former life in their faces and relics.
I've never really looked directly at the bodies of a loved one after death, and I don't even know if there is such a profession in the country. I had only watched from a distance at the small boxes that were filled in the spiritual hall, and when I looked at them, they were silent and colorless.
But I cherish the objects left by the deceased, which are the thoughts left for my loved ones, and in countless days and nights, I have gained strength to let the living live well, and they can rest in peace.
Maybe many years later, we will also have white hair, and in the year of the legacy, I hope that there will be such a person to dress me, sort out my belongings for this life, and send me on the last journey.
This is the most romantic confession at the end of life.