Departures is a Japanese drama film directed by Yōjirō Takita and
starring Masahiro Motoki, Ryōko Hirosue, and Tsutomu Yamazaki. Loosely
based on Shinmon Aoki's memoir Coffinman, the film follows a young man
who becomes a nōkanshi—a traditional Japanese ritual mortician—and
overcomes the prejudices of those around him. The story was conceived
after Motoki, affected by a funeral ceremony he had seen along the
Ganges, read Coffinman and felt that the story would adapt well to film.
Departures took a decade to complete, and distributors only released it
after the film won the grand prize at the Montreal World Film Festival
in August 2008. It became Japan's highest-grossing domestic film that
year and won numerous awards, including the first Academy Award for Best
Foreign Language Film for Japan. It was praised for its humour and the
beauty of the encoffining ceremony (set pictured), but critics took
issue with the film's predictability and overt sentimentality. The
film's success spurred the development of tourist attractions at its
shooting sites, increased interest in encoffining ceremonies, and the
adaptation of the story for various media.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departures_(film)>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
718:
Forces of the Umayyad Caliphate abandoned their year-long siege
of Constantinople, causing the caliphate to give up its goal of
conquering the Byzantine Empire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(717%E2%80%93718)>
1511:
Afonso de Albuquerque captured the city of Malacca, giving
Portugal control over the Strait of Malacca, through which all sea-going
trade between China and India was concentrated.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Malacca_(1511)>
1812:
War of 1812: Potawatomi warriors destroyed the United States
Army's Fort Dearborn in what is now Chicago, Illinois, and captured the
survivors.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Dearborn>
1915:
The New York World revealed that Germany had purchased excess
phenol from Thomas Edison that could be used to make explosives for the
war effort and diverted it to Bayer for aspirin production.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Phenol_Plot>
1945:
The Gyokuon-hōsō was broadcast in Japan, announcing the
unconditional surrender of the Japanese army and naval forces.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
beeline:
1. A very direct or quick path or trip.
2. (mining, chiefly historical) A dynamite fuse made with a small quantity
of dynamite powder along its length, so that the spark travels quickly
and at a specific known rate.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beeline>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
This Sanatana Dharma has many scriptures: The Veda, the Vedanta,
the Gita, the Upanishads, the Darshanas, the Puranas, the Tantras, nor
could it reject the Bible or the Koran, but its real, the most
authoritative scripture is in the heart in which the Eternal has his
dwelling.
--Sri Aurobindo
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sri_Aurobindo>