Producers, actors and directors approached it with the same meditative and craftsperson like skill so essential to Japanese tradition. The music is not emotionally manipulative: it is a depiction of the strong and profound emotions of the characters which, according to Japanese etiquette, may not be expressed overtly, out of consideration for the well being of others. This film is a testimony to the agony of grief, the joy of existence and the poignancy of life. We in the West are at least as emotionally repressed and probably more prone to trauma, because we do not have well developed ceremonies to handle it. We do not have social permission to express what is profound, and are punished or ridiculed for such expression. Nokan (encoffinment) is a process of allowing loved ones to witness, and participate in, the preparation of the dead for cremation. Families also witness cremation. Tearing of the veil between life and death is very much more healthy than modern, Western funerary practices which segregate death so radically from the living that we can now pretend antiseptic denial: a process not dissimilar to trash removal, as can be seen in the ham-handed behaviors of one pair of undertakers in the film. Solemn and gentle ritual is vital for psychological closure for the living and mitigates the trauma. The nokanshi must remove ego from this process; there must be no reaction to the state of the body, be it decomposed, transgendered or anything else. The nokanshi must respect the needs of the body and the loved ones first. Later, the nokanshi may find his (or her?) own way of coming to terms, but not in the presence of the deceased or witnesses. The director was convinced, due to the taboos associated with funerary practices, that this film would not be a commercial success. It stormed the box offices in Japan.
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