As a 2008 movie, after its release, it dominated the major lists, with 520,000 people watching Douban so far and scoring a high score of 8.9.
On October 29, Chinese theaters introduced a 4K restored version, so that this movie about death once again set off an undercurrent.
What comes to mind when talking about death?
Is it the reluctance to end life, or the pain of life and death?
And the director Yojiro Takita said: Death is an ordinary thing, we are born in the cry, and naturally we leave in the cry.
The male protagonist, Daigo Kobayashi, the cellist in the orchestra, thinks that he can finally achieve a career, but is told that "the orchestra is disbanded".
In desperation, he sold the expensive cello and returned to his hometown with his wife to save money and start a new life.
After returning to his hometown, on a recruitment advertisement, he went to the NK agency for an interview.
I thought that I was responsible for sending off the tour group, but after the interview, I learned that this was a funeral giving off others - the mortician who sent off the deceased.
The job is not decent in the eyes of everyone, but the salary is ridiculously high - equivalent to nearly 30,000 yuan a monthly salary, or in 2008.
For the sake of salary, Kobayashi persuaded himself to join the work, and he was always reluctant to mention his job with his wife, vaguely saying that he was responsible for the work he was sent to.
Before that, Kobayashi had never seen the body, not even his biological mother.
A mortician who had never seen a body before may have the momentum of a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers, but when he really faces it, he can imagine that the defense is broken.
The first time I assisted, I received an old man who had been dead at home for two weeks.
The chaotic environment, the smell of putrefaction, tested his willpower, and finally he couldn't help it – he threw up.
The first thing to do after the end is to rush to the bathhouse and wash away the putrid smell of my body hard.
The old classmates I met here were also very polite and respectful to him, because in the eyes of others, he was still the successful cellist, not the mortician.
At first, not only could he not accept it himself, but even when he went to the deceased's home, his family would say: Don't you just earn the money of the dead?
When the old classmate learned that he was a mortician, he met him on the road and avoided him, and even did not let him have contact with his wife and children.
When his wife found out, she reacted unusually to Kobayashi, trying to dissuade him from pursuing the profession, and even threatening to separate.
When Kobayashi tried to comfort her, his wife's first reaction was: Don't touch me, you are so dirty.
In the eyes of the public, the word death is unlucky, and everyone avoids death.
And Kobayashi, a mortician who was halfway out of the house.
In the face of this profession, if it is not the embarrassment of life and the temptation of high salary, how can he compromise?
In fact, Kobayashi also wanted to give up.
In the face of his wife's dissuasion and the disdain of the deceased's family, he finally offered to leave.
At this time, the president just took the roe of the grilled pufferfish and said to him:
This passage not only comforted Kobayashi from life, but also from the spirit.
If you want to live, live well; if you will die, leave with dignity.
Since then, Kobayashi has changed his view of the mortician and has begun to accept such a life.
From the beginning of the nervousness, uneasiness, to the current heart without distraction.
On Christmas Eve, he ate Christmas fried chicken with the president and receptionist at the company, and played a song "Ode to the Virgin" on the cello.
It seems to convey his delicate emotions and hope for the future.
After that, the film uses a montage editing technique to switch between Kobayashi's body into the funeral coffin and him playing the cello.
The cello's voice is low and mellow, in line with the film's theme.
Let the picture of the film become more calm and gentle, and with the birds in the field, add more solemnity and purity.
The cello needs to be held in the hands of a person and slowly pull the strings to have mellow music;
And the body needs to be carefully rubbed by the mortician, sometimes embraced, sometimes depicted, and little by little, it shows the most beautiful appearance of the deceased before he was born.
In the face of the deceased, Kobayashi's expression is less fearful and more calm, and he is learning little by little how to get along with this profession a little more harmoniously.
The president once said to Kobayashi, who was about to give up: This job is your vocation.
For death, Kobayashi was more ignorant and fearful at first, but after becoming a mortician, he was more sincere and calm.
The wife who returned to her mother's house, returned home because she found out that she was pregnant, and hoped to use the child to persuade Kobayashi to resign.
But unexpectedly, the owner of the bathhouse died, and Kobayashi, as a mortician, chose to be buried for the boss lady.
In this scene, he faces his classmates who are disgusted with the profession, and with his wife who does not agree with the profession, he is buried in front of them for the boss lady.
The whole time was silent, no one made a sound, watching Kobayashi dress the body little by little, drawing eyebrows and lips, and tying the yellow scarf that the boss lady loved most before she died.
Everyone said goodbye to the lady boss, and in the eyes of everyone, left her best side.
And Kobayashi, when he saw the body of his father, who had not been seen for thirty years, he could not remember the original appearance of his father.
But when he wiped, shaved his face, and sorted out his makeup for his father, he found that his father's face became clearly visible in his memory little by little.
At this moment, the onlooker will truly understand:
The existence of the mortician is the last respect for the deceased in the world, and it evokes the best memories of the deceased's family.
And this memory, which will be remembered in the heart, will become a trace of the search for each other in the next life.
Haruki Murakami wrote in The Norwegian Forest: "Death is not the opposite of life, but eternal life as part of life." ”
In fact, this is exactly the director's intention, to make this "thing that everyone will eventually face" into a daily routine, and then make this daily life sustainable and coexist with life.
The reason why "The Mortician" can become a classic is that it dares to touch the topics we avoid talking about, but it is a compulsory lesson in life.
In China, there are often news about morticians, mostly about post-90s morticians.
Although they are young, they have chosen an industry that most people would not choose.
Even if there are family members around them who do not understand, and there are their own children who are excluded, but their resolute choice makes death become particularly respectable.
Little by little, they wipe the body of the deceased clean, put on new clothes, paint makeup, and say goodbye one by one, just like they are ready to leave home and go far away, and there will be a period after all.