Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) thought he had fulfilled his life's dream playing the cello in an orchestra in Tokyo. However, shortly after the sponsor decides to dissolve it because of poor success with the public, thereby Daigo become unemployed. So, after getting rid of his expensive cello, decides to return, along with his wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue), his hometown in the province of Yamagata, where his mother left him an inheritance of a house where they can start a new life.
While looking for work, an afternoon he finds an ad that seems to have everything: great pay, no experience required, and the only thing to do is to "help people to travel", which he believes that it is a travel agency. However, soon discovers that the work is actually practicing the ancient art of Nokanshi, or ritual of wrapping the dead and placed in the coffins, that is, ceremonially prepare for the final farewell, and although initially resists such a reluctance to trade (which is also how his own wife to learn), soon discover that he will give his life meaning before an unknown, and he will play the cello again that his father had given him when he was a kid, but with a joy previously unknown.
Okuribito (translated as Departures, although it would be more correct to say "He who sends"), film directed by Yojiro Takita, explores various questions about the meaning of death with a touch sometimes funny and sometimes marked by a deep melancholy, but also is a search for the shadowy father figure, who is reconciled at the end with Daigo precisely the time to prepare his body for the last trip, after having hated throughout much of his life for a mistake that he committed in the infancy of her son. Should also be noted that it was the unexpected winner for Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2009.