Representation

       The film “Departures” (2009, Yojiro Takita) which follows the story of Daigo as he begins another occupation as an encoffiner and tries to fit into society while honing the role. An encoffiner is who does an encoffining during a funeral. This includes washing the dead body, applying cosmetics to the dead body to make the body look more living and setting the body into the coffin.

      Japanese culture is very ancient and to many things there are treated with great honour and respect, paying tribute to traditions, clearly following the centuries-old rituals. One of the most complicated rituals is a funeral. The meaning of working and taking care of with dead individuals was viewed as "unclean". This implied to "clean" themselves, individuals would need to experience purging ceremonies regularly known as "Harae" to free themselves. People who consistently worked with the dead however were generally considered to always be 'unclean'.

To addition, the director used instrumental music to symbolize demise. At the point when the protagonist’s musical job is finished he packs away the cello and hides it, Daigo also went through a proses of mourning for it.

Throughout the film, we are always adjusted to Daigo as he struggles to learn his new work and adjust his outside life also. We are demonstrated his suffering as his wife leaves him for working with the dead and how by overlooking the perspectives of others in his society. This in turn allows us to sympathise with Daigo and share his ideology on the nature of his job.

At first, many Japanese film distributors did not want to distribute the film as it went against typical Japanese ideology and could have potentially offended some people.