Kbudah- Torah Musah
April 21, 2014
Japanese Film
The Funeral
is a film by Juzo Itami that was produced in 1984. It has an aspect ratio of
1.85: 1. The film begins with the father in-law of the leading actor
unexpectedly dying of a heart attack. The remainder of the film moves from one thing
to another over the course of a three day funeral, which had been held (as it
is normal to do so) within the home of the daughter and son in-law of the
deceased. There is a woman by the name of Chizuko who is played by Nobuko
Miyamoto (the same actress who played as Tampopo) who is the daughter of the
deceased and she has a husband by the name of Wabisuke who is played by Tsutomo
Yamazaki (the main male character from Tampopo). Both Chizuko and Wabisuke play
the role of actors. Chizuko’s father, Kikue Amamiya unexpectedly dies. Chizuko’s
mother, Shokichi Amamiya requested that Chizuko and her husband conduct the
funeral at their house. This three day funeral keeps them busy. Despite the fact that this film is supposed to
be very serious and sad, there are many comic reliefs throughout this film. The
majority of The Funeral was narrated.
The
film begins with Wabisuke narrating the events that occurred before the death
of Kikue. In the beginning of the film when Wabisuke is narrating, he begins to
tell us that Kikue had just come from seeing his doctor and he was in a good
mood. Kikue told his wife, Shokichi that the doctors told him that he was fine.
Kikue and Shokichi sit down and enjoy the meal that they have prepared. Shortly
after this Kikue goes to bed and is awoken by this unbearable pain in his heart.
He crawls out of his bed to the balcony. Kikue began to call out for his wife
but she told him that she could not hear him and asked him to wait a minute.
Shokichi finally comes to assist her husband and she notices the amount of pain
that he was in. Kikue told his wife that looking out towards the ocean usually
makes him feel better, but this time it did not work. Shokichi asked Kikue if
she should call the doctor and he said no, maybe if he laid down the pain would
stop. Kikue was eventually rushed off to the hospital, hours later he died.
Shokichi called Chizuko and Wabisuke to tell them that
Chizuko’s father died. Shokichi asked if the funeral could be held at the home
of Chizuko and Wabisuke. Wabisuke was uneasy about having the funeral at their
house and eventually agreed. This film review will be on the part of the film
when Kikue’s body is being moved from the morgue to Chizuko and Wabisuke’s
house. The clip that will be discussed is the one that shows Kukue’s body being
moved from the morgue to the home of Chizuko and Wabisuke.
In this clip the older brother of Chizuko,
Wabisuke and their children have arrived at the funeral. The grandchildren,
children, Kikue’s elder brother and his wife are all sitting in the waiting
area of the morgue, each of them are mourning in their own way. Kikue and
Shokichi’s youngest daughter is silently crying, the two grandchildren are
sitting on the floor not fully aware of what is going on. The husband of the
younger sister has his head down and so does his mother in-law. Kikue’s older
begins to explain that he is Kikue’s older brother; he says “There were seven
of us, all gone now but me”. As he says this his head remains bowed.
In this screenshot,
Kikue’s family has entered the room in which he is lying. Chizuko’s younger sister see’s the body of her
deceased father and looks frightened remains in her state of mourning. She held
her hands closer to her body and gripped tighter to the tissue that is her
hand. Chizuko is behind her younger sister and she looks distraught.
In the clips above, the
TV studio guard tells Wabisuke that he will go and pay the hospital bill. As
Wabisuke and the TV studio guard walk in unison to put their cigarettes out,
Wabisuke asks how much does he think the bill will be, they TV guard responded
by saying “I don’t really know”. As they turn back towards the camera Wabisuke
say’s “I’ve only some 200,000 yen”. The TV studio guard tells him that he hopes
that it is enough and goes into the hospital. While in the hospital the guard from
the TV studio begins to laugh at the amount that was being charged for the work
that the hospital did. He was laughing because earlier in the film he and
Wabisuke were concerned about whether or not Wabisuke had enough money to pay
the hospital bill. The laughter of the
TV studio guard confused the woman behind the desk, due to this confusion she
began to explain why they were being charged this particular amount. The woman
behind the desk told the TV studio manager that the bill covered “It includes
washing the corpse and death certificate”. The woman behind the desk did not
understand why the TV studio manager was laughing. It just so happens that he
was not laughing because he thought that the price was a joke and they were
requesting too much. He was laughing because Wabisuke gave him 200,000 yen
expecting the bill to be high and in reality it was way cheaper than they had
thought. The TV studio manager counted out the amount of cash that he needed to
pay and handed it to the woman behind the desk. After he took a look at the
bill his laughter continued because he could not believe that the bill was way
less than he and Wabisuke assumed it would be.
The woman behind the desk remained confused about the laughter of the
guard from the TV studio. Those scenes were a minor example of some of the
comic relief that was portrayed throughout the film.
Still tickled from the
scene that occurred within the hospital the TV studio guard re-enters the
morgue. As he open opens the door he is still laughing not fully taking in the
fact that everyone else is in a mourning state. Not understand why he is
laughing the family members turn around and look at him with both confused and sad
facial expressions, they gave him a facial expression that read “Why are you
laughing? This is not a laughing matter”. Once the TV studio guard took note to
this, he stopped laughing and looked embarrassed.
In the screenshots
above Kikue’s family is discussing how they would transport the body from the
morgue to the home of Wabisuke and Chizuko. Kikue’s family decided that they
would put Kikue’s body into the coffin while they are at the morgue, transfer
his body to their house and leave him in there. This confused Kikue’s older
brother. In the first screenshot Kikue’s elder brother began to pace back and
forth in the room due to confusion he asked “Then you take him out and out him
to bed at home?”. Kikue’s brother continued to ask questions until he fully
understood what was going to happen to his brother’s body. After the conversation
was over Kikue’s older brother was still slightly confused but pretended to
know exactly what his family members had decided to do. This was another
example of comic relief.
In this scene Kikue’s
family is told that they will be moving his body into the coffin. One of the
family members touched Kikue’s body and became excited because they were under
the impression that Kikue was still alive. The family member announced that their
grandfather was still warm. Everyone rushed over to touch his body and became
very happy and excited because they thought that Kikue was still alive, they
began to tell him to wake up. Kikue’s elder brother touched Kikue’s body and
realized that his brother’s body wasn’t warm but the shroud that was covering
him was “It’s the shroud that’s warm”. When everyone was ready, they lifted the body
of Kikue and placed him into his coffin. (This must have been extremely hard)
As Kikue’s family
leaves, these four nurses came out and tell say “We’re sorry we couldn’t do
more”. Each of the nurses looked extremely sympathetic and humble. After the
nurses said this to Shikichi they bowed to her out of respect and watched her
as she left. When I saw this scene I was confused about the nurse with her arm
in the sling. I thought to myself “Was she one of the nurses that tried to
revive Kikue, if so what did she do…”
In
these screenshots the men are removing Kikue’s body from their car and moving
it into the house. As they were doing this Kikue’s wife ran towards they and
put her umbrella over the head of the TV studio guard and he coffin. As they
were transporting the coffin, the men realized that it was upsidedown and
turned around so that the area where Kikue’s head was located was going up the
steps first.
In the screenshots
above, Kikue’s body has been placed within Chizuko and Wabisuke’s home. Kikue’s
older brother is under the impression that his brother’s coffin isn’t facing
north like it should be. He asked Wabisuke is the coffin facing north. Being
confused with the question that Kikue’s older brother asked him. Wabisuke began
to question whether or not the coffin was facing in the right direction. Both
Wabisuke and Kikue’s elder brother began to figure out which direction is
north. It turned out that the coffin was facing north the whole time. After
figuring this out all of the men moved away from the coffin and Kikue’s elder
brother remained where he was. While standing in front of the coffin, Kikue’s
brother was still trying to make sure that his brother’s coffin was facing north
like it should. He once again touched his head out of confusion and continued
to debate with himself whether or not top of the coffin where his brothers head
was, was facing north. After a while he was satisfied and put himself as ease
by deciding that his brother’s head was facing north.
Juzo Itami’s The Funeral was a film filled with
everything from comic reliefs to sad scenes to overly dramatic scenes. This
film was not as sad as I expected it to be but I am not disappointed. Juzo
Itami provided a film that you can both
laugh and cry at. With comic reliefs
such as, the hospital scene and the confusion of Kikue’s brother. This is a film that everyone can enjoy because
it is filled with so many different genres.
