A young woman embarks on what she describes as the most ridiculous journey of her life after her father passes away and she must return to her hometown for a series of incredibly involved traditional funeral rites in Essay Liu and Wang Yu-Lin ’s lighthearted drama Seven Days in Heaven (父後七日, fù hòu qī rì). Perhaps the intent is more to keep the mourners occupied in a slow burn dissolve of their grief than it is to console a parting soul but in any case Mei finds herself meditating on the past and her already fading memories of her late father.
The strangeness begins at the hospital where Mei (Wang Li-Wen) and her brother Da-zhi (Chen Cha-Shiang) are repeatedly asked to explain to their father, who has just died, that they are taking him home. In the transport ambulance they ask if the family is Buddhist or Christian, and then simplify the question to whether they use incense sticks when a confused Mei is uncertain how to answer though as it turns out the rites they will be performing are largely Taoist. Anyway, the driver accidentally puts in the wrong tape and they get a blast of the Hallelujah chorus before he switches over to a series of sutras instead. A similar confusion sets in once they arrive back at the house where the funeral is being managed by a distant relative who works as a Taoist priest performing rituals largely concerned with death.
A running gag sees these familial relationships so tangled that they need lengthy explanations, Yi (Wu Peng-Fong) the priest explaining to Mei’s cousin Zhuang (Chen Tai-hua) that he should have been calling him “brother” and not “uncle” while as it turns out Yi still carries a torch for Zhuang’s mother, Feng (Angie Wang), who left him to work in another town and married a wealthy man. Currently in Paris, she does not return for her father’s funeral and sends her son instead who is equally mystified by these strange rituals and decides to film them as part of a university project.
Yi consults some religious calendars and schedules the days of the funeral accordingly from when they close the coffin to when they conduct the final rites with Mei and Da-zhi merely expected to keep up. A detached Mei explains that as the daughter she’s explicitly instructed when to cry and when not to, forced to run in and wail by the coffin on cue. Yi’s partner, Chin (Chang Shih-Ying), herself works as a professional mourner wailing on the behalf of others merely altering the identity of the deceased but in this case the siblings are alternately bored and run ragged, possibly too exhausted by the process of mourning to fully process their grief.
Zhuang’s film exposes the labour involved as he closes in Da-zhi explaining that he has to sweep up the ashes from the burning of ghost money. He asks him how he feels about his father’s death which might in itself be a little insensitive especially while pointing a camera in his face and he snaps back that he doesn’t know. Mei meanwhile is repeatedly drawn back to memories of her father, picking out a picture of him singing karaoke for the altar only to be told off by the older relatives. Zhuang eventually photoshops it to replace the mic with flowers and the background with a more appropriate scene of mountains and rivers. She doesn’t tell her friends her father passed away until months later and still finds herself forgetting, brought to tears on accidentally reminding herself to pick up some “longevity” cigarettes for him on a trip back from abroad only to realise there’s no need anymore. “Please stow your emotions” she imagines hearing the captain say in her father’s voice as she strives to accommodate her grief.
Filled with a series of humorous digressions from Yi’s love life and their late father’s ability to charm his nurses even at death’s door, the film paints a warm and nostalgic portrait of small-town life and the various rituals that go along with it, including a small tangent on political corruption as a host of politicians are obliged to attend the funeral, because of the aforementioned ill-defined familial relationships, and send elaborate gifts including a large tower of beer cans that later collapses and requires even more tiding up. Finally the siblings must burn their mourning clothes as if symbolically moving on from their seven says in “heaven” and returning to their everyday lives but discover perhaps that grief is an ongoing process the rituals of which may continue long after the funeral is finished.
Seven Days in Heaven is available to stream in the US Sept. 25 to Oct.1 as part of the 17th season of Asian Pop-Up Cinema.
Trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 