Fast forward to 2009, when director Yojiro Takita mentioned in his Oscar acceptance speech that [the mortician] was a "very Japanese story."
At that time, in addition to Miyazaki's cartoons, [Entering the Mortuary] was already the fourth time that Japan had won an Oscar.
Without thinking about it, we can immediately conclude that the best foreign language film [Into the Mortician] is the biggest difference from the previous one.
[Rashomon] is a disappointment in human nature; [Hell's Gate] is a tragedy about love and greed;
[Miyamoto Musashi] is a story about how a rogue became a samurai, and it seems to be bright, but the practice of pulling the samurai out of the aura is somewhat subversive.
[Rashomon]
Compared with the first three films, [The Mortician] seems to be the simplest, the most superficial, the most conformist, but at the same time, it is also the warmest, the most inspirational, and the most touching.
When Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) and the president (Yamazaki) arrive at the deceased's house, the wind and snow have stopped, and the reflection of the snow around the hut under the mountain is particularly dazzling.
The two men entered the room, bowed first, and said that they were disturbed. At this point, it is not so much that the mother of the deceased is immersed in grief and does not hear the greeting of the person who came, but rather contempt or impatience with the person who has been buried.
But Daigo and the president, Bi Gongbi, sat down and bowed again, saying please mourn the change. After the family returns the gift, incense is given to the deceased, and a glass of water and wine is offered, and then the silk veil covering the deceased's face is gently lifted.
"Obviously a beauty", Daigo's lips barely moved, and he sighed at the president at an imperceptible volume.
Next is the burial. Daigo was sitting precariously, folding his hands, greeting the deceased, and the ceremony began. This is the legendary "journey of praying for ease for the dead".
First gently stroke the forehead of the deceased, gradually touching the cheeks and nose wings.
(In order to grasp the skeleton outline of the deceased, people who have been dead for a long time should stuff cotton into their mouths to make their faces look more rounded)
Daigo then lifted the quilt that covered the deceased's body and untied the rope noose that was wrapped around his hand.
(The hands and feet are tied so that the deceased will not be led away by other lone ghosts on their way home.) At least that's what the chinese custom says)
Then he unbuttoned the deceased's kimono, covered the quilt, took off the deceased's clothes under the quilt, and put the removed clothes back on the quilt.
Finally, the sleeves of the kimono were folded back under the shoulders of the deceased and pressed, and the quilt was pulled out and folded aside.
(This is both to prevent relatives from seeing the body of the deceased, but also to protect the dignity of the deceased)
After taking off the clothes, the body of the deceased is wiped.
(Remove the tiredness, pain, and dust of the deceased, and at the same time bid farewell to the world to which the deceased returns)
Daigo soaked the cotton cloth with disinfectant and told the deceased's relatives before reaching under the kimono and carefully wiping it.
(The body is very easy to injure, and it will leave traces when it touches the skin.)
But Daigo's hand suddenly stopped, and he looked back at the president, his face full of black lines.
The text implies that this young girl who has just committed suicide has a male root underneath. Sensational music comes to an abrupt end, like in a Japanese anime, with awkward crows calling outside the picture
Comedic treatment
The reason why the first act of the movie is so detailed is not to play Lai, but because this scene sets the tone for the whole film. The few minutes before the subtitles are enough for us to judge whether we like it or not.
First of all, it should be emphasized that in the Japanese cultural and aesthetic system, although "death" is a very important element, its focus is always on the beauty of the moment of death, or the tragedy or greatness derived from it, rather than the process of dust returning to dust and earth.
In fact, the Japanese are more taboo about dead people than we are — many of their ceremonies, such as weddings, are held in the "Shinto" style, while funerals are considered a source of impurity and left to Buddhism.
Therefore, films based entirely on funerals are rarely seen in Japan (and outside of Japan).
However, originality is not fundamental to the success of [The Mortician], but lies in its comedic approach to the opposite.
Taking the first act of the film as an example, although it is a solemn funeral, the sudden change of the deceased's gender brings out a hint of black humor, and the sad emotions accumulated by the audience are instantly dissipated.
The rest of the story basically follows this routine - Daigo's wife (Ryoko Hiromi) discovers that the squid is alive when cooking, and quickly goes to the beach with her husband to release it.
Daigo affectionately talks to the squid and throws it into the sea, only to find that the squid is dead;
Daigo walked into the president's office for the first time, completely unaware that this was a burial company, and was shocked to see the coffin in the corner, and when the president appeared, he was holding a toothpick and wearing a trench coat, making people think that he was a community boss...
[Entering the Mortician] maximizes the excellent narrative characteristics of Japanese dramas, repeatedly wandering between tragedy and joy, and the sensational places are never soft, and after sensationalism, they do not forget to make you laugh.
We can think of this treatment as a consistent hint to the subject – don't be afraid of death, it's a common and beautiful thing;
But it is not difficult to find the director's small calculation - can not let the film be too heavy, after all, the audience enters the theater for entertainment and relaxation.
The order of the remains can also reflect the cleverness of the director.
Daigo has experienced many burials, only the first time is to face a highly decayed body, after which the fear and physical discomfort caused by the corpse are filtered out by the coefficient.
In exchange for countless gentle and warm bridges, mourning without hurting, happy and not obscene (this is actually avoiding death).
From this point of view, the so-called "Yamato movie swept Through Hollywood" is somewhat exaggerated, as Japan's Oyoshi said:
"Years later, when people look back at [The Mortician], they just think that it happened just in time for the Japanese movie bubble to burst, and they don't make any more associations."
The beauty of the ceremony
[The Mortician] can also be understood as a movie about "doing one line, loving one line".
In addition to being funny, its opening chapter also shows the steps of burial.
Japan is a ceremonial country, drinking tea and planting flowers, gathering and fighting must be followed by a "Tao" character as a support (such as tea ceremony, flower road, Bushido, Aikido).
Since it is the Tao, then everything must follow the procedure, and each step must have a board and an eye, and strive for excellence.
There has never been a shortage of similar movies in Japan, some about samurai (such as Akira Kurosawa and Masaki Kobayashi), some about geisha (such as Kenji Mizoguchi), some about ninjas (like Zenaki Kawajiri), some about puppets (such as Shuji Terayama), and even about making ramen, all of which have been made into a warm and touching inspirational movie.
In [Entering the Mortician], the director's fascination and confidence in his own culture also runs through.
There's a line in the movie that reads:
"To rejuvenate the person who has been cold, to give her eternal beauty, it takes calmness, precision, and with gentle feelings, the quiet of the farewell, so that all actions become so beautiful."
Although the words are too blunt and sensational, the film does achieve a corresponding ritual beauty.
From cleaning, changing clothes, to makeup, to the coffin, the mortician is careful, graceful, dignified and decent. They would even gaze at the faces of the deceased from time to time.
The sense of sacredness generated by the whole process offsets the original heaviness and coldness of death, and also allows the audience who has not seen the Japanese funeral to see the novelty of the exotic land.
Of course, we have reason to suspect that this is only the part that is selectively purified by the film.
Similar to when Wim Wenders went to Japan to shoot [Looking for Ozu], the Tokyo he saw with his own eyes did not have the charm of [Tokyo Nichiwa] or [Saury Flavor].
He turned to photograph a Japanese wax shop, and to him it was like the wax-sealed food outside the restaurant, frozen in the most beautiful moments.
Of course, in a way, [the mortician] can also be seen as an inspirational film showing the growth of a middle-aged man, and it is an inspirational film with a bit of fairy tale color.
Daigo's transformation from cellist to mortician is clearly a cautionary tale to move from youth to middle-aged people.
Philosophy of life and death
The final gimmick at the beginning of the film is to subtly shift the audience's attention to the cause of death of the deceased.
Because we have touched the male root of the deceased, and the president's judgment on the suicide of the deceased, we can more or less guess the ins and outs of his death.
The mortician is experiencing death and is also an observer of life. Later, almost every deceased person has a story, some straightforward, some obscure.
The film tries to bring out the creator's life feelings through these bridges.
From Daigo's contact with the rotten old man vomiting, to seeing the chicken in the plate collapse, to embracing his wife's living body to comfort himself, to gradually adapting to his work and finally maturing.
Although the whole process was full of twists and turns, in addition to being moved, [the mortician] did not provide us with much.
What it consumes is still the life experience that we have already matured.
"Death is the beginning of a new journey" is not a very profound idea; the fish that go upstream, revealing the natural law of "working for death," is indeed intimidating to Americans who clamor for "be busy living or be busy dying," but it is simply the right nonsense for those of us living in the Eastern context.
Legend has it that Zhuangzi sang with a drum and a pot when his wife died; when he stopped cooking, he was at ease and poor, and although he was in the name of exploring life and death, it was actually a road with Zhuangzi, and it did not go far.
At the root, it is not fundamentally different from Xiao Shenyang's "eyes closed and not open".
There are countless Japanese movies that talk about life and death, but after loading the big tail wolf, most of them can only shake out a familiar burden. Any philosophy of life will be defeated in the face of the unknown, and it is better not to say it than to say it is not clear.
The most cattle example we can think of comes from Imamura Shohei's [Japanese Insect Chronicles]—in the movie, Matsuki wept bitterly with a portrait of her father, full of the tiredness and bitterness of her lifelong life, and then she turned around and took out her basin and towel, sang and took a bath.
The director dissolves the heaviness of death with a mixture of tragedy and joy, but the film's overly ordinary and lack of blank ideology has become a hardcore that he cannot digest no matter what, and it has to be said that it is a pity.
Like, in the long cutscene in the film, Daigo is on a field (or a dyke?). Playing the piano, this shot is extremely beautiful, but it is completely an advertisement or mv of thinking mode, which is very abrupt in the movie.
To some extent, this sensational freehand shot also reveals the director's lack of Zhuangzi's spiritual realm of "the great beauty of heaven and earth without words", or it can be said that it is a lack of blank consciousness.