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)
_______________________________ 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
_____________________________ 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
___________________________ 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
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