All peoples value life and death, and people bless life and avoid death. Confucius said, "Death is like life", raising death and funerals to a very important position. But when a disciple asked him about the afterlife, he replied, "Unknown birth, but death?" "It means that the things of the living have not been clarified, and where do we know about the dead?" It sounds like such a serious, and philosophical topic is being avoided lightly. But it also truly reflects the taboo on the topic of death since ancient times, and the fear of death itself.
However, on October 29, 2021, the Japanese film "The Confessor", which was released in China, was gently unveiled with the theme of death, and the mysterious and dark veil laid a warm tone for it. As the consistent expression of Japanese culture, "Entering the Mortician" also starts from a very subtle point of view, starting from small characters, like a cherry blossom slowly blooming under a slow motion, layer by layer, piece by piece, and finally showing the ultimate beauty and warmth of death.
The protagonist of the film, Daigo Kobayashi (starring Yojiro Takita), has an ideal of becoming a cellist, but when he spends a lot of money to buy a cello and is confident about the future, he is told that the orchestra will disband. Daigo had no choice but to sell his cello and return to the countryside with his wife. "There is a house left by my mother, I don't have to pay rent", my wife quickly adapted to life in the countryside, but Daigo became a mortician with a yin and yang.
At first, Daigo was reluctant. First, life forced him to need money. Second, Daigo's resignation several times was cleverly blocked by the president who saw through the human condition. The president said, "You were born to eat this bowl of rice." This is an important reason why when Daigo applied, the president only looked at him once and accepted him. Of course, it is difficult to recruit people in the line of the mortician, but the image setting of Daigo is down-to-earth, duty, and the face is always respectful, careful and humble, which is the basic quality required by the entering master.
The president saw this at a glance, so when he first hesitated, the president paid the first day's salary and said that he could resign at any time if he did not like it. But Daigo is struggling inside, so is it necessary for a pair of cello-playing hands to touch the unclean corpse? On the first day of returning home, his wife asked what kind of work, and Daigo was vague, so that his wife mistakenly thought that he was the emcee of the wedding, and Daigo was very entangled. But when he watched his wife happily carry the beef he bought with his salary to make a hot pot, he still decided to try it first, after all, material is the first, and no money is absolutely impossible.
Daigo's luck is bad, the first time he goes out with the president, he encounters an old lady who has been dead for two weeks. The room was full of stench, and Daigo couldn't help but throw up. The president was serious and respectful, as if he were facing his old friend who was alive. On the bus home, Daigo was disgusted by the smell of disgust. He rushed into the bathhouse and rinsed himself over and over again. Unexpectedly, when he came home and saw his wife's raw chicken for dinner, he couldn't help but vomit again. Daigo was very sad. At night, he ripped off his wife's clothes like a vent, sniffed fiercely on his wife's neck, greedily smelled the fresh living breath at work, and could not feel it.
Yes, in order to live, Daigo had to give up his ideals! For the sake of life, force yourself to do the work you don't like! Even jobs that are looked down upon by others. Where can life be smooth sailing? Not that there is a sentence, the ideal is very full, the reality is too bone. The reality of bone can always touch the ideal to pieces. Daigo has been working and has been struggling.
The work of a mortician is divided into four steps. The first step is to cover the body of the deceased with a clean cloth and remove all the clothes in front of the relatives of the deceased, the most important step is not to let the family see the body of the deceased; the second step is to wipe the body of the deceased with a white cotton cloth and change into the clothes that are the favorite in the deceased; the third step is to paint the delicate makeup of the deceased; the fourth step is to respectfully put the deceased into the coffin. The president works calmly, meticulously, and gently according to the procedure, in order to ensure the final dignity and dignity of the deceased, to remove the troubles and fatigue of this world for them, to be clean, not to be stained with a little dust, to put on their favorite clothes, to put on the most beautiful makeup, and to prepare for going to that world.
The president's hands gently caressed the faces of past lives, carefully arranging their clothes, as if treating a rare treasure. He carefully consulted with his family about all matters concerning the deceased. In the soothing music of the cello, the president witnessed and blessed every life and death with loving eyes. Under the gaze of love, recall the deceased and endow them with eternal beauty. All this heals the relatives and friends of the deceased, so that the middle-aged widowed man can finally cry and lose his voice and release his inner pain. Let the rebellious girl who dies finally usher in the forgiveness of her parents....
The president's love and gentleness for the deceased, as well as the rigorous and serious attitude of the work, not only touched the relatives of the deceased, but also made Daigo feel the professional value of the mortician.
He gradually fell in love with the job. The fact that Daigo was a master gradually spread in the town. Not only did his friends advise him, but he also returned to his mother's house. The depressed Daigo came to the bridge and saw the salmon in the river swimming hard upstream, dying in large numbers. His eyes were hollow, and then the crematorium cremators passed by and said that salmon had come here to go home.
The president even told him that to enjoy life well, you must be kind to life and death is what everyone will experience, but the way is different, depending on the region, ethnicity, race, religion, the way of funeral is very different. Chinese are afraid of death, although we also live to death, and some regard death as a homecoming, but most of them are "those who give up their lives and take righteousness."
The Japanese have a unique view of life and death, and they believe that the most extreme beauty is death. Haruki Murakami even said, "Death is not the opposite of life, but eternal existence as a part of life." Returning to work again, Daigo began to experiment with independent operations, and he increasingly felt the realization of his own value. At the beginning of the film, I realize that I sold my cello, but I feel relaxed. As if all the shackles were gone, and at this time he treated every deceased person tenderly, just as Tagore wrote in his poem, "Death is like the quiet beauty of autumn leaves", and he created an eternal beauty with his love. Maybe Daigo wasn't suitable to be a cellist, but his job as a master made him a true artist.
Two months later, his wife, Mika, returned. Meanwhile, the lady who often took care of him as a child dies. For the first time, his pregnant wife witnessed Daigo's work. Daigo's meticulous and gentle treatment of the deceased not only made Mika understand him, but also touched her friends. The job of a mortician should have been a respected job. Daigo and his wife go to the crematorium to send the lady boss. The cremator said, "Death is a door, it does not mean the end of life." Instead, go through it and go to another stage. Every time he started the crematorium, he would say, "Be careful on the road, we'll have a period later." "Yes, no one can escape death, and everyone who goes to that world first will meet with his friends and relatives, so there will be a period later."
With the growth of the fetus in his wife's womb, Daigo's work became more and more smooth, but at this time, the news of his father's death came. When the father abandoned his young son and wife and betrayed the marriage, Daigo had infinite reasons in his heart to resent his father. When he personally buried his father, he found that when his father was dying, he was still holding a smooth little stone that he had given to his father as a gift. In the era before the invention of the word, people used stones to convey mood, smooth stones represented your happiness, and unevenness represented that the other party was worried about you. His father left Daigo's mother and son for many years, but he has been worried about him, has always loved him from his heart, and has never let go.
Daigo shed tears to tidy up his father's makeup and send his father on a journey to another world. When he saw him playing the cello, the scene of his father giving him the bumpy stone was another way for his father to worry about Daigo. The appearance of the deliberately forgotten father once again clearly returned to Daigo's heart. He was healed at an early age by the psychological trauma caused by his father's departure.
The film "The Mortician" is based on the novel "The Diary of a Coffin Man" by Japanese writer Shinmon Aoki. Directed by Japanese director Yojiro Takita, it was released in Japan in September 2008 and has won many awards, including the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The 4k restored version was released on the mainland on October 29, 2021. Douban scored 8.9 points, and netizens commented that it was a healing product, warm and warm.
Like many Japanese healing films, "The Confessor" begins with the plight of a small person in society, and shows step by step the process of their self-help and being healed. At the same time, in this process, a grand theme runs through. The dissolution of the orchestra, the death of the hostess, the closure of the bathhouse, and the mortician profession of President Sasaki, who was almost uninhabited, all tell another line of life and death in history and culture. The child of enlightenment at the end of the film will be born, can the joy of life mean that the culture that has gradually aged in time will also be passed on? There are many such Japanese films, such as "The Best Gift of Life", "Asada's House", "Next Heaven" and so on.
The funeral of the Chinese nation, although different from place to place, has long developed into a culture. Everyone has attended the funeral to a greater or lesser extent. The heart-wrenching heart and lungs of the relatives of the deceased, the people who pass by understand that no one can comfort this pain, no one can solve it. The pain of the first few days of the death of a loved one is irreplaceable and no one can replace it. That pain sometimes goes on, not for days, but for years or even decades, decades, making you wake up crying in the middle of the night. However, the humor of the Chinese people is also revealed in the funeral culture, on the one hand, the pain of the relatives of the deceased, and on the other hand, the laughter of the mourners. I once heard fifteen or sixteen-year-old children on the side of the road pointing to the opposite spiritual shed and saying, "Everyone's family is dead, they are still playing mahjong there, and they are still laughing there!" The tone was full of contempt and disdain.
Where can they understand that in the old days, funerals needed everyone's help to send the deceased to the cemetery. The more people who come to the funeral to mourn, the more it indicates that the relatives (especially children) of the deceased are well-liked, and the more they indicate that the deceased is a blessed person. Everyone came to help, of course to entertain. In order to make the funeral prosperous and super popular, the mahjong table outside the spiritual hall was set open, and the mourners sat around laughing and laughing. This is also the attitude of the Chinese people in life, let us say goodbye with laughter, in order to let the deceased go without concern.
If you can face death with a smile, if you can be treated gently by a mortician like Daigo after death, and then go to another world in the most beautiful way, death is a farewell ceremony that begins another journey. So, what is there to fear from death?