If I were asked to name my five best movies of all time ~ this year's Academy Award-winner for Best Foreign Language Film, DEPARTURES would be at the top of that list ~ for it is an exquisite masterpiece and a subtle testimony to the profound power of love: Allen L Roland
Every now and then a movie will touch my heart but DEPARTURES gently reached into my soul and softly caressed it to the point where I was willingly and openly shedding tears as this two hour masterpiece drew to a close.
Winner of 10 Japan Academy Prize awards and exquisitely directed by Yojiro Takita, DEPARTURES is not only an eloquent and heartwarming tale, it is also the hero's journey of groping and finding your true calling, but above all ~ it is a subtle love story between two people that grow and blossom before our eyes wherein both partners eventually become established in their own perfection.
This film is a gift ~ for not only does it honor life but it also honors death and, in the process, it honors its viewers.
Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Language Film of the year, Departures is a delightful and sensitive journey into the heartland of Japan and an astonishingly beautiful look at a sacred part of Japan's cultural heritage.
Here are three other reviews that captured the true essence of this dazzling film ~
" Picturesque and graceful with touches of gentle comedy, awash in lovely images and a gorgeous music score by Joe Hisaishi, with one poetic sequence following another... Filled with expressive, contemplative scenes and performances that are quietly powerful, Departures is a sensitive, bittersweet masterpiece that earns its tears honestly."
Richard Knight, Jr., Windy City Times
""Every so often, a film comes along that is the whole package ~ that accomplishes everything that transforms a movie into a true work of art. Departures, winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film, is such a film. It is a beautiful film at each level ~ visual, aural, emotional, spiritual, plot. As a whole, Departures stands as a sterling example of what film can be."
Darrell Manson, Hollywood Jesus
"This film is absolutely amazing..so well made it transcends the limits and strictures of language and its native culture. This film speaks to its viewers in the gentle and loving respect it shows its characters and through them, its viewers. How long has it been since you had the opportunity to be cherished by a motion picture? "
Ted Ott, Valley Scene Magazine
And cherished you will indeed be ~ Click on the trailer but it will barely touch the emotional chords this movie will strike. http://www.departures-themovie.com/about.html
See it soon and be elevated in the process ~ as I most certainly was !
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/06/07.html
