Wen 丨 small water
On October 29, 2021, the 4K restored "Mortician" landed in Chinese mainland theaters, and many people called it a "re-screening" is not accurate, which is really a 13-year late theater premiere.
"The Mortician"
The film was first screened on the mainland at the 17th Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival held in Dalian in September 2008, when its Chinese translation was "The Man Who Sent the Dead Off", and the film won three awards: "Audience's Favorite Foreign Feature Film", "Audience's Favorite Foreign Director", and "Audience's Favorite Foreign Actor", although according to some netizens, few people actually watched this film at that time.
Nowadays, when we watch this film, we may not be able to taste the atmosphere of the times - at the beginning of the film, the male protagonist who works for the symphony orchestra is disbanded by the band and has a huge debt due to a loan to buy a piano.
In the context of the global financial crisis, "The Mortician" may not convey a philosophy of life and death in the eyes of the audience at the time, but is closer to the inspirational story of finding a second spring after unemployment.
Discriminated against occupation
The conception of "The Mortician" began with Masahiro Honki's journey to India when he was 27 years old, and he was touched by the local funeral rites. After returning to China, after reading the book "The Diary of Na coffin", he was first exposed to this special profession and came up with the idea of making it into a movie.
Death is obviously a matter that is closely related to everyone, but it is so avoided by the public; the mortician is obviously engaged in a very important work, but he is discriminated against because of the prejudices of the world.
Yojiro Takita, who came from a pink film, took over the guide of this film, and perhaps somewhere in his mind, the two professions of mortician and pink film director overlapped somewhat.
Yojiro Takita's directorial debut was 1981's "Crazy Girl Teacher", and then he filmed the "Crazy Han Train" series, becoming a well-known director in the "industry". Although it is an unpopular profession in the eyes of the public, it allows him to fully explore and experiment, and develop his own comedy and drama are good at a variety of styles.
Yojiro Koda
He said, "Pink movies are something like that, as long as you shoot the pink part, other places can play freely, which is very interesting."
These fragments with pink genes can also be seen in "The Mortician", sometimes humor related to the body - for example, at the beginning of the film, the male protagonist played by Masahiro Motogi moves his hand under the cover, wipes the body of the deceased, suddenly freezes when he touches the lower body, his eyes turn awkwardly, and whisper to his boss, "There is that"; or when he is driven to the shelves as a model for the teaching film, the male protagonist appears only in adult diapers, which is reminiscent of the set of an adult film.
Sometimes it's the erection of lust—the male protagonist who has finished disposing of the rotting corpse returns home and suddenly hugs his wife greedily for the warmth of her flesh.
The only minute deleted from the Chinese cinema release is also here, and perhaps the censors are keenly aware that the director used the technique of pink film to shoot Ryoko Hiromi's panties.
Except for these occasional vignettes, most of the time, the funeral ceremonies shown in the film are solemn and decent, and the director meticulously shows how the mortician prepares the deceased for the journey in a magical way — cleaning the mouth, shaving the face, changing clothes, wiping the body, loosening the stiffness after death, putting on makeup, and finally sending it to the coffin, and the family members seem to become the audience of the performance, briefly forgetting their sadness in the surprise of their techniques.
The film repeatedly emphasizes the artistic side of the profession of mortician, such as setting the male protagonist as a cellist, or alternating the picture of the male protagonist playing the cello with the funeral ceremony in the form of a montage (supplemented by Hisaishi's music that makes the sensational to excess).
Even when starring in the job list at the end of the film, a fixed lens showing a panoramic view is used to reproduce the complete process of entering the mortuary in great detail, so as to arouse the audience's respect for the profession of the mortician.
Beauty and falsehood
In order to reflect the "beauty" of the burial, correspondingly, the "unbeautiful" parts are expelled by the camera - the decaying corpse is not directly represented, the remains of the deceased are always clean and peaceful, and the grief of the bereaved is also very restrained.
It can be said that there is no real cruel death in the film, and some are only artistically processed and idealized deaths.
Itami Thirteen also filmed funerals (Funeral, 1984), and his footage of funerals was much more perfunctory and embarrassing. Children who have not yet developed a reverence for death are playing with each other, the man and mistress are sneaking in the woods, and the monks who chant the sutras are making small calculations to get a little more benefit.
The most important thing is that the camera sweeps from behind the kneeling family members in turn, they turn their toes, move the soles of their feet, take advantage of the fact that people are not paying attention to let the feet of the pressure numb breathe, and then the camera moves up, looking at the front, the crowd is still a mournful look.
The Funeral
Perhaps with Zhu Yu in front, "The Mortician" deliberately avoids the ridicule and irony of the ceremony, and this seriousness makes the sensationalism become somewhat stereotyped in the second half of the film.
Similar to the depiction of death, there is never a real conflict in The Mortician.
The wife played by Ryoko Hiromi is an innerly empty and perfect wife, the husband first hid a huge debt from her, and then concealed his new job, but she followed her husband to the countryside without complaint and regret, and repeatedly understood her husband with the gentle compassion of Yamato Fuzi, even if the male protagonist never made any active redemption after the wife ran away.
Watching the wife's professional technique of facing her husband's burial at the funeral of an acquaintance, gradually showing a look of appreciation and pride, the audience was shocked to realize that the so-called husband and wife conflict was only to complete the wife's side of the rehabilitation, no wonder the spoiled male protagonist always had a childlike innocent expression on his face.
At the end, the bridge of father-son reconciliation simply pushes this idealized reconciliation to the peak.
The male protagonist received the news of the death of his father, who had abandoned him for more than thirty years, and at first did not want to take responsibility for his burial, but finally changed his mind under the persuasion of his wife and colleagues. The climax of the drama occurs when the male protagonist is buried for his father, and finds that his father is holding a stone in his hand - that is, the symbol that the father still misses the male protagonist in the last moments of his life.
However, after several times about the stone in the whole film, the only person who can still be shocked at this time may be the male protagonist.
According to the drama routine, the stone is undoubtedly the last clue to be recycled, and the stone on the screen and the stone in the audience's heart land at the same time, and the story ushers in the finale without accident.
The status of death is supreme, which is why there is the saying that "the dead are greater". Under this strong moral pressure, the male protagonist also had to reconcile with his father, who broke off relations, and the father's hand appeared just right with the stone, making this reconciliation look blameless.
In fact, if the director really wants to give the audience some shock, leaving the father's hands empty may be able to tell some truth.
As Žižek said, in the film and television drama, he always loves to shoot on the plane that is about to crash, and the protagonist calls his family and says, "I will always love you", but a real action in front of death may be to call his other half and tell his other half: "I have never loved you."
Blockbuster Oscars
In 2008. At the 81st Academy Awards, the attribution of the best foreign language film exploded.
At that time, the media was generally optimistic about French director Lauren Guntai's "Between the Walls" and Israeli director Ali Fuchman's "Dancing Waltz with Bashir". When the host read out the shortlisted films, the voice on the scene was also the highest in these two films.
Between the Walls
According to the usual operation of the awards ceremony, the popular film crew will set up a camera position around them to capture the instant expression of the winner. The same was true that day, when the winning film was announced, Masahiro Motogi saw the camera pushing the camera for the crew of "Waltz with Bashir", so that the ear heard "Departure!". Sounds so unreal.
This is the first time that a Japanese film has won the award since best foreign language film became a permanent Oscar award, and because it was too cold, the camera at the venue did not capture the expression on the face of the main creative team when this historic moment occurred.
I can't figure out why many people won the award for "The Mortician", including even the director himself. After winning the Best Foreign Language Film Award, director Yojiro Takita said in an interview with reporters, "Even our crew wants to ask the judges of the Academy Awards 'why'?"
Yojiro Takita himself speculates that "most of the other shortlisted works are related to social and political issues. The Mortician depicts universal and at the same time a personal emotion. The winner of "The Mortician" may reflect the American mentality that "there is enough conflict!" 'Right."
It's almost like the domineering president is used to looking at the "charming cheap goods" around him, and seeing the gray-headed little sister suddenly move in his heart, "You successfully attracted my attention!" The little sister listened to the drum in her heart: Do you want to tell him that in the village of Li Nei, there are still dozens of numbers like me?
The biggest controversy surrounding "The Mortician" has never been whether it is good or not, but whether it is "so" good, good enough to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, good enough to represent all Japanese films on the world stage and enjoy the glory.
Ichikawa Kun, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi, Hiroshi Kawahara... In the place where so many giants have returned home, it is Yojiro Takita, a lesser-known director, who has gained favor.
At that time, Yojiro Takita stood on the podium of the Oscars and said, "We will be back." But thirteen years later, he has not been able to go back, and Japanese movies have not been able to go back.
Although the award was full of controversy when it was first awarded, in retrospect, it is amazing that the award-winning "The Mortician" is indeed a film that combines the characteristics of Japanese films. Maybe it's not the best, but it's really the most representative of Japanese cinema, including its strengths and weaknesses, aesthetics, and clichés.