Departures (in Japanese)
Rating = B-
The film is pretty
to look at (interesting small town Japanese architecture), provides
an interesting glimpse of Japanese funeral rituals (complementary to
the glimpse in “Cherry Blossums,” earlier this year, and has some
thoughtful themes (e.g., reconciliation and death rituals helping the
living). It is also pretty structured to jerk your hearts strings,
the acting of two of the leads is not very natural, and it moves
beyond a thoughtfully slow pace to dragging (in the movie theater
where I saw it, filled with senior citizens, there was a pretty heavy
stream of people going out to the restroom as the movie approached
the 2-hour point).
[2009-06-24]