We watched the award winning Japanese movie called Departures while we were in New Zealand.

 A young Japanese cello player, who finds himself out of work, answers an advertisement for a job which he thinks is for a travel agency only to find it is working for a company that prepares dead bodies for burial – otherwise known as ‘casket dressing’. 

It was a gentle movie with a powerful insight into a very special ritual performed after death.  The warmth, humour and sensitivity of the subject were beautifully portrayed. The handling of the body and the ritual cleansing and dressing of the deceased was encouraging to witness. It was a movie that touched and inspired me. I certainly would have made mention of the ritual in my lastest book on funerals if I had seen the movie while I was writing it…definitely a must for the second edition.