The Funeral (1984)

Original title

お葬式

Directed by

Jūzō Itami

Genre

comedy film

Country

Japan

Runtime

2h 04m

Rating

7.1 of 10 from 51 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A family gathers to prepare for a traditional Japanese funeral after the death of a husband and father. The film follows the three days of arrangements and shows the interactions between various relatives with a mix of grief and wry humor.

observationaldryly comicgentlereflectivedetailedslow-paceddomestichumorous

What happens

The Funeral (Japanese: お葬式, Hepburn: Osōshiki) is a 1984 Japanese comedy film written and directed by Juzo Itami. The film shows the preparations for a traditional Japanese funeral. It mixes grief at the loss of a husband and father with wry observations of the various characters as they interact during the three days of preparation. The Funeral was Itami's feature film debut and was an enormous success in Japan. It won five Japanese Academy Awards in 1985 including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor for Tsutomu Yamazaki. It was nominated in a further five categories and also came first in the annual Kinema Junpo critics' poll. In May 2022, the Criterion Collection released a restoration of the film on Blu-ray. The film was described by The New Yorker as a “prize-winner in Japan”. Itami took inspiration for the film from his experience with the funeral of his father-in-law (Nobuko Miyamoto's father). In 1992, it was screened on the United Kingdom's Channel 4 under the title Death, Japanese Style. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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