IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a VPN whenever visiting Hextube, or anywhere else on the internet, for that matter. Protect your privacy.

For this Sunday Kino Night, we’re starting with Departures (2008), a Japanese drama about a struggling cello player who applies to a local job, delighted to have finally found work, only to find that the position is actually a mortician for a funeral home. He decides to make the best of it, and finds he has a passion for it. His friends and family don’t like his new position, and drama ensues. This one won the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar back in 2008, and received excellent reviews from pretty much everywhere; it is by far the best-known and best-regarded film of director Yojiro Takita. Looks good; let’s watch.

After that is A Matter of Life and Death (1946), a fantasy rom-com about a British WW2 pilot who jumps from his plane without a parachute, and miraculously survives. The heavens believe they have made a mistake, and send an angel to get him. Uh oh. Meanwhile, he’s fallen in love with an American radio operator. Hilarity ensues; some drama too. The directors are Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who also did the ballet film The Red Shoes (1948), which we previously watched and enjoyed. This is considered one of their best films, and is currently ranked #221 on Letterboxd's Top 250 films of all time, so let’s give it a whirl.

We’ll start at 8PM EST on Hextube, right here:

https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• Departures: https://letterboxd.com/film/departures/
• A Matter of Life and Death: https://letterboxd.com/film/a-matter-of-life-and-death/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• Departures: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/21447
• A Matter of Life and Death: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/15979

CWs for Departures:

• Stalking.
• Domestic argument.
• Deaths of animals.
• Bugs.
• Shaving.
• Corpses.
• Hanging.
• Death of child.
• Death of parent.
• Bath scene.
• Vomiting.
• Misophonia.
• Suicide.
• Misgendering.
• Death of LGBT person.
• “Sexual content”. It is tame, as the movie is rated PG-13.
• Honking horn.
• Blood.
• Sad ending.

CWs for A Matter of Life and Death:

• British people.
• Someone is burned alive.
• Plane crash.
• Unconsciousness.
• Hallucinations.
• Death by falling.
• Ghosts.
• Natural bodies of water.
• Needles.
• Hospital scene.
• Unstable reality.
• Misophonia.
• Flashing lights.
• Chronic illness.
• Car crash.
• Someone is hit by a car.
• Blood.

Links to movies:

• Departures: https://tankie.tube/w/9B8aDdpnwmU1fDQB129nCi
• A Matter of Life and Death: https://tankie.tube/w/uvgFKaidnq85N8NDG1M4YM