MEMORY-Departures BGM

MEMORY MEMORY is the background music in Departures, a 2008 Japanese drama film directed by Yōjirō Takita and starring Masahiro Motoki, Ryōko Hirosue, and Tsutomu Yamazaki. Loosely based on Coffinman, a memoir by Shinmon Aoki, the film follows a young man who returns to his hometown after a failed career as a cellist and stumbles across work as a nōkanshi—a traditional Japanese ritual mortician. He is subjected to prejudice from those around him, including from his wife, because of strong social taboos against people who deal with death. Eventually he earns their respect and learns the importance of interpersonal connections through the beauty and dignity of his work. MEMORY is performed by Joe Hisaishi, a Japanese composer and musical director known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981.