Departures

Daigo Kobayashi is a cellist whose dream is shattered when his Toyko orchestra suddenly closes down. Left with no choice but to sell his prized cello, Daigo returns with his wife Mika to his late mother's house, deep in the Japanese countryside. In need of money, Daigo responds to an ad in the paper for a job in Departures, mistakenly thinking that it might be somehow related to travel. But to his complete surprise, Daigo finds he has applied for a position as an "encoffineer" - a man who performs the delicate and traditional Japanese ritual of preparing the bodies of the recently deceased for their departure to the next life - and without having time to think about it, he accepts the job...