Washing the Bones

An Okinawan film...

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Pauline: And the premise, the postulate, the proposition of this film?

洗骨: Bone Born Bone

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Tadao: That a funeral is followed by four years of a body folded inside a coffin. Legs bent double. And that after four years, when only bones remain...

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Pauline: When only bones remain? Yes?

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Tadao: That the family gathers again to open the grave. Stone by stone. It’s on an Okinawa beach. They take the lid off the coffin. And wash the bones.

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Pauline: Wash them?

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Tadao: Remove the hair. Wash the bones, Lay them out on a clean sheet.  Everything goes more or less according to plan. Except that daughter Yuko goes into labor in the middle of the washing. And has to have the baby on the beach.

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Voice-over

Director Takayuki Teruya diverts this potentially macabre tale (洗骨: Born Bone Born) into a light-hearted look at an old cultural practice of washing the bones of a mummified body. In Japan, where virtually everyone is nowadays cremated.

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