Nokan - The Art of Fading Out

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Movie
German title Nokan - The Art of Fading Out
Original title お く り び と
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 2008
length 131 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Yōjirō Takita
script Kundo Koyama
music Joe Hisaishi
camera Takeshi Hamada
cut Akimasa Kawashima
occupation

Nokan - The Art of Ending ( Japanese お く り び と , Okuribito ) is a Japanese film by Yōjirō Takita from 2008 . The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2009 Academy Awards .

action

Daigo Kobayashi is a cellist in an orchestra in Tokyo . When the orchestra is disbanded, he loses his job. He decides to give up his career as a professional cellist and to sell the cello , which he had previously bought for 18 million yen (approx. 144,000 euros ). He and his wife Mika move to his hometown of Yamagata to look for a new job. And one day he discovers a job offer that is roughly titled "Help with the trip". It is only during the interview that Daigo realizes that his potential employer is not a travel company, but a corpse-laundering company . The manager is ready to hire Daigo for 500,000 yen (approx. 4,000 euros) a month. Daigo accepts the job, but can't bring himself to tell his wife Mika what kind of job his new job is.

On his first day at work, Daigo has to play a dead man for a DVD that explains the body washing procedure. His next task is even more appalling for him: He has to help his boss prepare for the wake an old woman who was lying undetected in her apartment for two weeks after her death . Daigo struggles with nausea at the smell and sight of the dead body. That evening Daigo wants to play the cello again and just indulge in his memories. He takes the cello out of his childhood and finds a large, rough stone on the pegbox, wrapped in sheet music. While playing the cello, he remembers that his father gave him this stone on a family outing, while Daigo gave his father a small smooth stone. However, he can no longer remember his father's face.

Little by little, Daigo begins to enjoy his work. One day, however, Mika finds the DVD and begs him to quit what she sees as disgusting work. Daigo refuses, which is why Mika leaves him. Long-time friend Yamashita also avoids him after learning about Daigo's job.

A short time later, Mika comes back to tell Daigo that she is pregnant. She asks him again to find another job. During the conversation with his wife the phone rings: Yamashita's mother, who ran the local Sento , has died. Daigo does his job, preparing the old woman for the wake in front of Yamashita, his family and his own wife. Yamashita and Mika begin to understand Daigo and to respect his work.

Daigo takes Mika on a trip to the river to the place where he and his father looked for stones in his childhood. He hands Mika a medium-sized, slightly roughened stone and tells her the story of the "stone letters" that he has from his father, namely that in earlier times, when they could not write, people sent stones with different weights and surfaces, to express their feelings. Smooth surfaces should mean that the sender is happy and uneven and rough surfaces that one should be concerned about the sender.

One day a telegram with the news of the father's death arrives at the address of Daigo's deceased mother. Daigo's father had left the family when Daigo was a young child. That's why Daigo initially refuses to see his dead father, but Mika and Daigo's work colleagues persuade him to go. When Daigo is with his father, two undertakers come and want to pick up the body, but do not follow the traditional rite , so Daigo is forced to prepare his father for the funeral himself. When he does this, he finds the small smooth stone in his father's hand that he had given him as a child and begins to cry. He hands the stone to Mika. While performing the rite, he remembers the family outing again and can clearly remember his father's young face. After shaving his father, Mika gives him back the small, smooth stone; he presses it against his pregnant wife's stomach.

Movie title

The Japanese film title is a combination of the verb okuru , i. H. “Goodbye”, “escort”, and the noun hito “human”. It is not a common word, but the resulting meaning is something like "one who says goodbye or guides the other". The English version was given the title departures , which stands for "departures", in train stations for "departures", in airports for "departures". The German title is the designation for the funeral home in which the protagonist works: Nokan ( Japanese 納 棺 , nōkan ). It means "coffin" and is mentioned a few times in the film.

production

The film was made over ten years, starting with the idea for the film from the main actor Masahiro Motoki himself. He learned to play the cello especially for the film and learned the art of burial with a real corpse washer. The director attended funeral services to understand the feelings of loved ones. Since death and burial in Japan are on the one hand a ceremonial - as shown in the film - and on the other are taboo subjects in public, the director initially did not expect the film to be a great commercial success.

Reviews

“ Nokan - The Art of Fading Out succeeds in turning the taboo subject of death into a teaching piece about life peppered with loving humor. In particular, the movingly dignified scenes of the Nokan ceremony strike a conciliatory chord in the heart of the audience that resonates for a long time. "

- Alex Attimonelli, Cinema

"With the help of a slapstick comedy, the film first breaks up fear of contact with the subject of death and then turns into a calm, touching reflection on dying as part of life, the search for inner peace and reconciliation with personal fate."

- Lexicon of international film
  • Roger Ebert awarded four out of four points and writes: "This film is not a stylistic breakthrough or an artistic statement in bold. But it is an exception because it is so well made."

Awards

International

In Japan

  • Blue Ribbon Award : Best Actor (Masahiro Motoki)
  • Hochi Film Award: Best Film
  • Japanese Academy Award : Best Film, Best Director (Yōjirō Takita), Best Screenplay (Kundo Koyama), Best Actor (Masahiro Motoki), Best Supporting Actor (Tsutomu Yamazaki), Best Supporting Actress (Kimiko Yo), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound , Best lighting
  • Kinema Jumpō Prize : Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Masahiro Motoki)
  • Mainichi Eiga Concours : Best Japanese Film, Best Sound
  • Nikkan Sports Film Award: Best Film and Best Director
  • Trailer ZEN Festival: Grand Prix
  • Yokohama Film Festival: Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Kimiko Yo, Ryōko Hirosue)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Nokan - The Art of Fading . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2009 (PDF; test number: 120 124 K).
  2. ↑ Cinema.de : NOKAN - THE ART OF THE END
  3. ↑ Nokan - The Art of Fading. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Departures :: rogerbert.com :: Reviews . December 5, 2011. Retrieved October 1, 2017. 

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