Full-time actor

Chapter 524 [89] What kind of performance is this?
"I remember when I was a kid, the winters here weren't this cold."

Chen Bensheng was driving on a rural road in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. There was heavy fog and whiteness in front of him, like the entrance to hell. He could not see the front, only vague buildings.

……

At the moment, the entire Movie Palace Theater is full of people. Chen Yu, Liu Yifei, Takita Yojiro, Hirosue Ryoko and others are sitting in the first row, watching the premiere of "Departures".

Chen Bensheng is the name of the leading male character played by Chen Yu in "Departures".

The jury members, including Li An, the main creator of "Lust, Caution", Xu Ke... Hollywood's George Clooney, Matt Damon and others, all sat in the second and third rows, watching the plot of the movie attentively.

Driving through the fog at the beginning made everyone feel a depressing atmosphere; the similarity between the fog and hell seemed to foreshadow the title of the movie "Departures", which tells a story about the road to death.

Finally, the fog gradually became clearer. A house with elegiac couplets and white wreaths hanging on the door stood alone at the foot of the mountain, and the sounds of crying and funeral music could be heard from time to time.

Then, everyone realized that someone in the family had died.

Chen Bensheng and Motoki Masahiro play the president of the burial agency, Sasaki Ikuei, and the two begin the work of putting the deceased in the coffin.

“So professional!”

“One-shot shooting!”

“Have you learned this before?”

Seeing Chen Bensheng meticulously carrying out the coffin-entering process, even the chairman of the jury, Dante Ferretti, and the judge A Cheng, couldn't help but glance at Chen Yu beside them. After all, the visual impact of the burial scene in front of them was too shocking.

It is really rare for an actor to learn such skills in order to play a role well.

Although many actors have the need to experience their profession, no one dares to shoot the scene in one shot like Chen Yu did.

The deceased was a girl.

Suddenly, Chen Bensheng's hand stopped there. He was just wiping the body of the deceased, but when he wiped the lower part, he suddenly stopped.

Everyone was a little confused, was this pregnancy, or something else?
"There's something under him!"

Chen Bensheng spoke to the president, who narrowed his eyes slightly and had to take action himself.

In the end, the answer was beyond everyone's expectations. The deceased was actually a man; but his family members still insisted on putting on a woman's death makeup for him!
Until his death, he never lived up to his manliness.

"Does he want to be a woman himself?"

"Or is it family pressure?"

Liu Yifei was thinking, if it was the former, then it would be the fulfillment of her wish; if it was the latter, then it would be too cruel; then, she learned from the conversation between the president and the parents of the deceased that it should be the latter.

The parents strongly wanted to have a girl, so even if they gave birth to a boy, they would still raise him as a girl.

When the deceased grew up, he probably couldn't bear the inner torment and committed suicide.

"A sad family..."

Liu Yifei sighed slightly and watched the title of "Departures" pop up on the big screen. The soothing and uplifting cello sound seemed to elevate the sadness to a certain level; the urgency of the music was like a symphony of death.

Chen Bensheng was playing the cello and accompanying the band's performance.

This sudden scene change still made everyone a little uncomfortable; but the soundtrack seemed just right, a masterpiece from the Japanese soundtrack master Joe Hisaishi.

The audience then learned that Chen Bensheng was actually a cellist at first, but the troupe disbanded due to lack of work. This made Chen Bensheng, who had just borrowed a huge amount of money to buy a cello, feel a little devastated.

Dissolution means unemployment.

When he got home in the evening, he told his wife Mika, played by Hirosue Ryoko, about this incident, and Mika was also shocked by the price of the cello.

But life has to go on. Meixiang comforts her husband and tries hard to find a job. She cooks and seems to be a very virtuous woman. However, a live octopus given by a neighbor puts the couple in a dilemma.

Both of them were afraid of killing, so in the end, Chen Bensheng released the octopus.

This is a very dramatic scene.

A person who is afraid of killing lives ends up becoming an undertaker?
The sense of anticipation suddenly rose.

Chen Bensheng encountered setbacks everywhere and couldn't find a job; in fact, this was normal, as Japan's economy was in a depression at the time, and countless theaters closed down, not to mention drama troupes; finally, forced by livelihood, Chen Bensheng discussed with his wife and decided to return to their hometown together.

They sold the house, and the only thing left was the guy who came to eat, the cello.

"Why don't you sell the cello? Get a cheaper one?"

Liu Yifei was a little puzzled. Chen Yu seemed to see what Liu Yifei was thinking and whispered in her ear: "Artistic quality shows that the protagonist still loves music in his heart!"

Such high moral principles led to him finding a job as an undertaker in the end, which created a very strong contrast.

A man who studied art ended up becoming an undertaker.

In fact, even he himself looks down on this job, he just does it for the money; because the salary of a mortician is indeed good, but not many people do this job.

Just like that, a rookie who knew nothing broke into the world of undertakers. Of course, Chen Bensheng had to hide it from everyone, including his wife.

The president was teaching him the coffin-putting ceremony and accidentally scratched his face. This guy is afraid of blood... Everything seems to show that he is not very smart and is not suitable to be a mortician.

Especially when I saw a dead body for the first time with the president, I vomited immediately.

"Hahaha!"

Cheerful laughter could be heard from time to time in the theater. Unlike the dull and heavy burial of the deceased at the beginning, the tone of the film in the first half hour was really happy.

Even Liu Yifei looked very happy.

I have to say that Chen Yu has a really high talent for comedy. He played a clumsy young man with great artistic aspirations.

That kind of morbid awkwardness is very real.

He rejected this job, even hated it extremely, but holding the salary given by the president, he began to compromise; but when he got on the bus, he felt uncomfortable everywhere, as if his whole body was filled with the stench of a dead person.

He ran to the bathroom and washed himself over and over again, washing away the smell of contact with the dead.

Even the gaps between nails, nostrils, eyelid gaps, nose hairs, eyelashes, etc. are not spared.

"Ha ha!"

Liu Yifei really laughed, covering her mouth and laughing. Chen Yu's acting in this part was particularly funny; you can see that Chen Bensheng's character has mysophobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and extreme hatred.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Chen Bensheng smelled his fingers, armpits and other parts of his body and felt that the self in the mirror was very unfamiliar; in his memory, he was studying music abroad with high spirits and bright eyes, but now he is a marginalized person in society who has to bow his head for a living.

When I turned around and was about to go home, I met the family of my elementary school classmate. The two of them were chatting happily. The classmate's mother even praised Chen Bensheng for being great and told her granddaughter that he was a great cellist.

Chen Bensheng gave an awkward but polite smile. After his classmates told him that they would drink together next time, he returned home.

They were having hot pot at home, and it was a live chicken hot pot. Meixiang was happily and virtuously preparing the ingredients, and she told Chen Bensheng that this was a very fresh chicken that had just been slaughtered. Chen Bensheng only took one look at it and immediately had a stress reaction.

I rushed to the kitchen sink and started vomiting. I really vomited.

He vomited until bile came out, and Meixiang was there soothing his back. Chen Bensheng was gasping for breath and turning on the faucet to wipe the dirt off his mouth.

Just when Mixiang felt her husband had recovered a little and turned off the faucet, Chen Bensheng suddenly reached out, grabbed the back of her hand, rubbed it, and suddenly put it to his mouth. Everyone stared at this scene in a daze.

He was not kissing his wife's hand but feeling her pulse, a detail that everyone could sense.

His wife looked at him with some concern: "Are you okay?"

Chen Bensheng raised his head, looked at his wife, then put her hand on his cheek, stroking it continuously, and then hugged him tightly.

He was like a lost child, smelling the scent of Mika and feeling her warm skin, feeling intoxicated.

This is a desire for living things.

slam-la-

Chen Bensheng slowly knelt on the ground, hugged his wife around the waist, put his nose against her abdomen, and his breathing went from rapid to slow and calm.

But his hands kept touching his wife's arms, from top to bottom, rubbing them constantly, as if this could ease the uneasiness in his heart.

In this section, Chen Yu's acting skills are undoubtedly superb.

Every audience member watched without blinking, watching the originally funny atmosphere become solemn and dignified at this moment; Chen Yu used his acting skills to show how difficult it is for a rookie to become a mortician.

This is a journey of the heart and the beginning of Chen Bensheng's rebirth.

“Is this my ordeal?”

"Because I wasn't with my mother when she died?"

While Chen Bensheng was studying abroad, his mother died unexpectedly and he was unable to see her burial. Chen Bensheng looked at the photo of his mother hanging there while his wife fell asleep.

At this time, Chen Bensheng really wanted to play a piece of music.

But when he couldn't find a job as a luthier, he was forced to sell his piano to make a living.

He rummaged through boxes and cabinets and finally found the broken cello he had practiced on as a child; the head of the cello was propped up with a stone wrapped in newspaper. He took out the cello, placed it against the floor at home, and started plucking the strings.

The marks on the ground were all made by the tip of the cello touching the floor.

Riddled with holes.

Accompanied by the melodious piano music, memories flooded into Chen Bensheng's heart like a tide.

He sat here when he was a child. His parents watched him practice the piano and took him to the bathhouse to take a bath. He should have had a very happy family. His father also accompanied him to the beach to pick up stones. The stone in the piano case was picked up by his father at the beach.

He also picked up a small white stone and exchanged it with his father, but he could not remember his father's face at all.

The wife also woke up at this time, and looked at her husband playing the violin sweetly. She felt that he was elegant and handsome at this moment.

The final shot was fixed on the big rock supported by newspaper.

The implication is already very clear.

This big stone symbolizes Chen Bensheng's father. The beautiful scene of egrets flying in the sky makes the whole play more artistic. As winter turns to spring, Chen Bensheng seems to have adapted to his job as an undertaker. Although he still has some repulsion in his heart, at least every time the family members of the deceased express their gratitude, he feels a different kind of warmth.

It seems that this job is not that bad.

It was at this time that he met his good friend from childhood. The other party already knew about his job as an undertaker, and the news had also spread in his hometown. The other party looked down on Chen Bensheng and advised him to find a new job.

Then, to make matters even more unfortunate, his wife Mika also found out.

The two had a big fight, and his wife felt ashamed of his job and ran away from home in anger.

However, Chen Bensheng received a call from the agency saying that someone had died again.

He stood up and thought for a moment at home, and finally decided to continue his work as an undertaker.

This time, he personally handled the coffining. Chen Bensheng completed the coffining of the deceased very rigorously and seriously; but the mother of the deceased suddenly screamed: "No, my daughter's hairstyle is not like this!"

She was still crying and asking Chen Bensheng to re-braid her hair according to the picture in the frame. Suddenly, the father of the deceased got angry and said to his wife, "What's the point of you saying this now? Isn't everything because of you?"

"What qualifications do you have to insult mom? You are the one with the biggest problem in this family!"

"You bastard, if you hadn't taken your sister on the bike, would she have died?"

"..."

The whole house was suddenly in chaos, and Chen Bensheng was stunned. Just when he was at a loss, the father of the deceased suddenly pointed at his son, Chen Bensheng, and said, "Do you want to atone for your sins? Do you want to be like him and do this to atone for your sins for the rest of your life?"

Chen Bensheng was shot in the knee by an arrow, and was shot even when he was kneeling.

After the burial, he returned to the agency in a daze. Was his job as a mortician really wrong?

The whole world, including his classmates, family, and relatives of the deceased, did not understand him.

The emotions that Chen Bensheng had accumulated towards this job with great difficulty were suddenly shattered by reality.

He is ready to resign.

Colleagues all felt it was a pity because not long ago, the president had signed him, and Chen Bencheng became the only formal employee of the company; none of them were yet.

"..."

Chen Bensheng didn't understand, but in the end, he made a decision.

He found the president and was about to tell him that he was quitting, but the president sat there and told him a story of his own.

Nine years ago, his wife passed away. She was the first person he sent away and the first person to be buried. Since then, he has been doing this job.

Chen Bensheng was finally persuaded and continued to work as a mortician.

At this moment, the screen suddenly jumped to the opening scene.

Chen Bensheng put makeup on the "girls" and put them into the coffins. The family members of the deceased cried and expressed their gratitude to him. At this moment, he finally understood the sacred mission of this profession.

Chen Bensheng laughed, very happily. He played the cello and ate barbecue happily.

The music was extremely passionate, just like Chen Bensheng's heart which was suddenly enlightened at this moment. The true meaning of death could not be replaced by any profession.

Accompanied by pleasant and exciting background music, Chen Bensheng personally saw off each guest; his burial techniques became more and more skillful, and he could bury the dead in pieces, including those who died in car accidents, those who jumped from buildings... His fame and reputation grew.

Countless people were grateful to him and saw him off. He was respected by the families of the deceased and felt more and more how precious this profession was.

It was at this time that his wife returned from her parents' home.

She wanted to live a good life with Chen Bensheng, on the condition that he quit his job, even if she had to work to support him; but a phone call made Chen Bensheng's body pause.

The mother of his best classmate passed away.

He hurried to his classmate's house, and his wife followed him.

Watching him concentrate on completing each step of the coffin-putting process seriously and solemnly, his classmate's mother, who had looked haggard, regained her former appearance and figure.

His classmate, his wife Mika...also understood this job.

The two reconciled and lived a happy life. Mika even became pregnant. Listening to her husband playing the cello for her, she felt more and more satisfied with life.

The audience also thought that the film was about to end here...but a letter broke all the peace.

From Chen Bensheng’s father.

My father, whom I hadn't seen for 30 years, passed away.

call!
Chen Bensheng gently lifted the sheet from the corpse and stared closely at the face in front of him.

He buried his father himself.

A father who divorced his mother and abandoned him for many years.

Chen Bensheng's only memory is that of his childhood!
At that time, his father was still very kind, playing hide-and-seek and playing with stones with him... Unfortunately, he abandoned Chen Bensheng and his mother for a mistress. They had not seen each other for more than ten years. He had no feelings at all for the father in front of him. On the contrary, there is hatred.

But the sudden death and the consolation from his colleagues made him pay his last farewell to the person in front of him.

"..."

Chen Bensheng massaged the face of the corpse in front of him, starting from his face, lips... and then, his entire body.

The whole process seems to be a kind of art, with absolutely no flaws to be found. The scene before our eyes can be called impeccable craftsmanship.

Some of their techniques are even more meticulous and professional than those of professional undertakers.

Chen Bensheng's father clasped his hands on his chest. His hands had been held there stiffly since he had been dead for a long time.

After massaging the face, shoulders and torso, he finally came to the hands. Looking at his tightly clenched hands, Chen Bensheng began to slowly open them and massage them without any hesitation, allowing his hands to return to normal.

pat!

Without any warning, a small stone fell from the clenched palm of Chen Bensheng's father.

It hit the wooden floor with a crisp sound.

Chen Bensheng looked at it intently, picked up the small stone, and seemed to recall the scene of playing with stones with his father when he was a child.

The image of my father finally became clear at this moment.

He didn't expect that his father had been hiding this little stone.

A smile appeared on Chen Bensheng's face; but the next second, endless memories and sorrow came over him. He held the stone, turned his head and smiled at the dead old man lying there. His face gradually became calm and focused...

He couldn't help but look back at his wife with sadness, Mika burst into laughter through tears.

Chen Bensheng handed the stone to her, and his expression became solemn again; this time he almost got close to his father's face, wanting to take a good look at this biological father whom he had not seen for many years.

Tears, completely uncontrollable at this moment, burst out of Chen Bensheng's eyes.

He did not wipe it, but carefully completed the process of placing the coffin. It was a gentleness and rhythm that came from the heart.

The entire audience was moved to tears by this final scene.

This is touching.

It is the resonance brought by the most sincere acting.

Chen Bensheng's movements were so delicate and professional. Tears blurred his eyes, giving people a feeling of progressive grief; as if after the death of a loved one, one was not so sad at first, but when seeing the objects reminded him of the person, grief overwhelmed him in an instant.

He seemed to be completing the burial ceremony in an orderly manner, but his tears were already flowing like a dam bursting, and he couldn't stop them.

But the face didn't change at all.

He cried without changing his expression, but everyone could feel the silent sadness and dedication to his work from his actions and expressions.

"Ah--"

After the burial, Chen Bensheng, with his face covered and tears streaming down his face, stared blankly at his father who seemed to be alive again.

He stared for several seconds, reached out and stroked the other person's face, and suddenly smiled slightly.

Tick ​​tock!Tick ​​tock!
Countless tears fell.

Family love and death, at this moment, seem to have completed a closed loop.

……

The final scene was that Chen Bensheng held Meixiang's hand holding the small stone and placed it on her slightly bulging belly.

His hands, his wife's hands, symbolize the belly that nurtures new life, his child.

Death is not the end, but the beginning of another life!
pat!pat!
The lights in the theater suddenly came on.

The director’s name popped up on the subtitles, as well as the names of the three main actors—Chen Yu, Hirosue Ryoko, and Motoki Masahiro!
clap clap clap!
Thunderous applause that seemed to burst the entire theater came from every corner of the theater; it finally gathered into the most powerful momentum and lasted for more than a minute.

"Thank you!"

"thank you all!"

Chen Yu and all the main creators of "Departures" came to the front of the stage. After bowing to everyone present, they also clapped together.

Everyone was moved by Chen Yu's final performance.

It was the most natural and real expression, as if a loved one had really passed away.

No one could believe that such acting skills could be found in such a young actor; the title of double winner of Cannes and Berlin Film Festival seemed to highlight its value at this time...

Some people may be born actors.

(End of this chapter)