お葬式 (aka The Funeral) (1984)

When her father (Hideji Otaki) dies suddenly of a heart attack, his daughter (Nobuko Miyamoto) and son in law (Tsutomu Yamazaki) attempt to organize the funeral which will occur in three days. Directed by Juzo Itami (A TAXING WOMAN) in his feature film directorial debut. Try as I might, this film just didn't work for me. It's a black comedy but I found nothing funny about it. Perhaps I just can't appreciate the Japanese humor because I saw what was supposed to be amusing but I didn't laugh. To be fair there are two things that handicapped the movie for me. One, I dislike funerals (I try to get out of them if I can and I've only attended four funerals in my life) and while funeral sequences in movies don't bother me, an entire film about a funeral is as pleasant as cutting yourself with a knife. Two, heaven forgive me but I found the film's male lead (Yamazaki who won the Japanese Oscar for his work here) so physically repulsive that it was difficult to watch the movie. The rest of the cast are good and in the case of Miyamoto's wife and daughter, more than good. With Kin Sugai and Asao Sano.