"She'd never looked so beautiful."

The only Japanese cinema to which I had been exposed before this week's Cinema 10 film were the likes of "Battle Royale," "Oldboy," and "Tokyo Gore Police." There's also the slew of horror movies that have been remade for American Audiences. While these movies are actually completely awesome, they all deal with subject matter that's pretty disturbing. "Departures" was something entirely different. Made in 2008, it received an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and I can understand why. Yojiro Takita's film work is nothing short of beautiful.

The film follows Daigo Kobayashi, a struggling cellist, as he attempts to make ends meet in a less than respectable position. After his orchestra is dissolved, he takes up the shunned craft of preparing the deceased for cremation. He is a blissfully awkward character in the midst of indifference and unfaltering joy. Though he's seen as something of an untouchable after he begins cleansing the skin of the dead, he finds some comfort in it, and eventually learns to love what he does. But that all sounds kind of trite and unoriginal. A person thrust into uncomfortable circumstances, and then coming to terms with his station in life? Been done. But Takita plays up such a parallel between the living and the dead, between what it means to be alive and what happens when we're dead, that other films that address such circumstances fall short. "Departures" is comic, yet sad; beautiful, yet dingy. You won't know what I'm saying until you see the film, as it is nothing short of phenomenal, so find it on Netflix or at Video King or whatever you have.

But before you do that, I want to say what I have to say, dammit! All I could think of in the theater was how much this film had in common with 2007's "No Country For Old Men." Stay with me. There have been a few occasions where I've started at my DVD collection and found pairs of movies that were opposite sides of the same coin. For example, "Trainspotting," and "Requiem for a Dream," would be heads and tails, respectively. Both deal with heroin addicted groups of friends, but while one suggests something hopeful, the other is somber and depressing. "No Country" is about fate; how the only real certain destination anyone has is the afterlife, and to what do our lives between birth and death really amount? It leaves the viewer wondering what all of their morals and ideas mean, and if they matter. "Departures" also deals in fate, but is much more uplifting. The film recognizes that death is the only true certainty anyone can have, but the departed here are treated with such care and grace that the viewer can't help but think that maybe it's a peaceful drift down that god damn lake of fire.

Verdict: Completely and Utterly Stoked.

The only real criticism I have is that this is another film that's a victim of its trailer. Because the companies seem so intent on showing you everything in the movie in the two minutes of trailer, you get a pretty clear idea of how the film's going to end a lot earlier than you should. Any foreshadowing to the ending that the film uses seems so obvious because of the trailer, that a lot of the surprise is used up by the time we get to the climax. Oh, well.

By far the best film Cinema 10 has brought to Potsdam in recent memory, certainly this season. The crowd was nearly double that of the previous week, and the theater was noisy with the buzz of opinions as the credits rolled. Hopefully the showings continue to impress.

Cinema 10's going to take a break next week, as SUNY Potsdam will be on October break. It will return on the 19th with "Food Inc." Can't wait.