 Byrnes found that Departures leads one to question the extent of modernity 's effect on Japanese culture , noting the undercurrent of " traditional attitudes and values " which permeated the film . Although the encoffining ceremony was traditionally completed by the dead person 's family , a decreased interest in it opened a " niche market " for professional encoffiners . Okuyama wrote that , through this film , Takita was filling a " spiritual loss " caused by the departure from tradition in modern Japan . Tadao Sato connected this theme of modernity to that of death , explaining that the film 's unusually non @-@ bitter treatment of death demonstrated an evolution in Japanese feelings about life and death . He considered the film 's treatment of nōkan as an artistic rather than religious ceremony to reflect the agnostic attitudes of modern Japan . 
