Yojiro Takita From Pink Films to Oscar Gold

More than two decades between “Comic Magazine” and “Departures” Mr. Takita had established himself as a versatile and highly successful filmmaker in Japan, with three best-director nominations in Japan and a best-picture award in 2004 for “When the Last Sword Is Drawn,” an elaborate historical drama about the end of the shogunate in the 19th century. Winner of the best foreign film 2008 for “Departures”, Oscar victory suddenly brought him to the attention of the rest to the world, the one section of his résumé that every article mentioned was his apprenticeship in “pinku eiga”, the pink films (adult films) that were once a huge part of the Japanese movie industry.
“Yes, my career as a director did start out in pink films,”. It’s a background he shares with well-known Japanese filmmakers like Kiyoshi Kurosawa (“Tokyo Sonata”) and Masayuki Suo (“Shall We Dance”). “But frankly,” he added, “at my age I look back, and pink films, regular films, to me they’re all part of the movies that I made. And they all express the joy I feel in the privilege I have of making all the decisions that create a world called a movie.”
A youthful 53, Mr. Takita radiates the confidence required to make the myriad decisions involved in directing a movie like “When the Last Sword Is Drawn” or his 2001 hit,“Onmyoji,” a story of ghosts and wizards set 1,000 years ago in the Fujiwara court during the Heian period.
After a string of movies that combined history and mythology, swordplay and sorcery and special effects, “Departures” was a change of pace. The idea for the film came from Mr. Motoki (star of Departures), who in his late 20s (he’s now 43) read a book written by a nokanshi, or encoffineer. (The film’s Japanese title, “Okuribito,” or send-off person, is another name for the same function.) For some Japanese funerals an encoffineer is hired to perform a ritual of bathing and dressing the body before it is placed in the coffin for cremation.

Mr. Motoki’s character, Daigo, is a cellist whose orchestra is disbanded without warning. Answering an ad for what he thinks is a job at a travel agency, he stumbles into his new career and is taken in hand by a master encoffineer.
Once the film was finished, another long wait ensued: 13 months passed before a distributor could be found. But the delay was a godsend; Mr. Takita conjectured that the worsening economic climate primed audiences for the film. “Is money the most important thing in life?” he said. “What is the most important thing in life? People certainly are in search of some kind of comfort, of safe haven, and whether they find that in music or in books or in films, it’s pretty clear that people are looking for something.”
On the more practical side, Mr. Motoki pointed out that just before its domestic release, “Departures” won the grand prize at the Montreal Film Festival. The movie had grossed more than $60 million, in Japan alone which is a huge number for a Japanese production.
After Montreal and a basketful of awards in Japan — including another best-film prize from the Japanese academy — the Oscar was “the icing on the cake,” Mr. Takita said. And it was a flavor he could get used to.

Source: Internet