PSY 317 "Departures ~ Okuribito" & "Grace Is Gone"

Two back-to-back movies of grief and tears.

Departures & Grace Is Gone

       A Japanese movie focusing on the culture of making the body clean and beautiful before putting them into the coffin and sending them off to their new journey.

        Whereas Grace Is Gone, focuses on how a husband goes through accepting and breaking the news to his daughters about Grace, his wife, their mother's death.

Death

       Before moving onto analyzing the movie :P, I want to state my believe that Kubler Ross's 5 Stages of Death is applicable to both the person experiencing death and those close to them. Therefore, everybody experiencing death of their loved ones would also go through 

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargain
• Depression
• Acceptance

       I believe no matter it is Western or Asian cultures, they will eventually go through the same stages. The only difference is the time and how they accept it as they go through the acceptance stage. In Departures, it is a film of Japanese culture during the funeral where the people had already accepted their death and preparing to send them off to the other world. Through those different funerals, we are able to recognize how different people and family watch as their loved ones were slowly cleaned up as they were alive before being encoffined, as well as burned off to their gateway. The process was so elegant and graceful, especially how they respect the body and the family, made me confirm that Japanese is of a different culture from Chinese. I know that Chinese culture also make-up the body but the Japanese do it in front of the family. In the middle of the film, the encoffinment became more happy and various in how they said good bye or how they beautify them like how the granddaughters put loose socks on the grandmother plus how the wife and daughters leave kiss marks on the father and said thank you to him. It shows that not everybody deals with the departures sadly.

       From the last scene of Kobayashi Daigo's father encoffinment, it really shows how important the process is to the family as well as how a person's death / funeral is a task and a new adventure of those left behind. This can be seen how the stone from his father's hand threw his hatred away and passing down the stone to his unborn child.

       In Grace Is Gone, Stanley Phillips took a longer time to fully accept and tell his daughters about the death of Grace Phillips during duty. This focuses more on the whole 5 stages where at first he denies Grace's death by calling back home to listen to her voice and imagine that she's ok as well as refuses to talk about it with the soldiers and his brother. Anger was released with making donuts on the fields as it was frustrating to go back and face reality. {Of course, there were other scenes but this scene was what I could relate to.} Bargain was not displayed or experienced as Stanley thought that her death, though not acceptable, was still patriotic and was for the protection of the country. This is also one of the distractions which I believe to fall under denial. Depression was experienced along the whole journey till Enchanted Garden. It was obvious on how Stanley hardly smiled and was still unable to tell his daughters about their mother's death. Lastly, he finally accepted the fact to his gut and decided to tell Heidi and Dawn their mom's death.

       I believe that what Heidi went through was not about the mother but the uncertainty of her father's actions. She was strong to handle the news after hearing the voice message left by Stanley. I think she somewhat guessed the situation but did not expect it to be a death as shown in the beach where she rejected and denied what her father said about their mom.

       As a sum, all deaths were grieved at the funeral more. There were not much difference despite of different cultures. As I had experience a few deaths around me, I feel that as long as they died in peace and going up there which could be either heaven, or pureland, or any other levels. Before this, I wouldn't think that I would be this open. But, after maturity and experience I believe death is inescapable, nature thing as said in Departures. It is no use to grieve on the deaths of someone who has left, but to treasure those who are still alive.

It is hard to cherish those alive. But, it is harder to accept one's death with regret.

        So, if you can't stay close to them, make regular visits. Make sure you observe others' sudden change of behaviors along with fulfill their wishes.