On Saturday I went to Roppongi Hills to see the movie “Ratatouie”. In Japanese, this movie is called “Remi’s delicious restraurant” which I actually think is a much better title. I had no idea what the movie was about when I saw the title “Ratatouie”, but have a bit of an idea when I see the thing about Remi having a good restaurant. Anyway, I moved to Japan about a year and a half ago, and in that time this is the third movie that I’ve seen. Back in New York, I used to see about three movies a month usually. That’s a pretty big difference. A lot of it has to do with costs: movies here are about $16 a ticket, which is expensive even when comapred to New York’s outrageous $10 ticket. It also just isn’t something that people do often here, so back in the US when you are trying to think of something to do, a group movie is a pretty normal option. It just isn’t usually an option here.

Anyway, we headed out to Roppongi Hills (there is a nice theater there) to see the movie. It’s a Pixar movie, and they’ve put out some great stuff in the past. In general, I like that they are making CG movies, but I’m even more impressed because they really focus on the story and make movies that are appreciated by both kids and adults alike. So I’ll generally try to see a movie just based on the Pixar name. This movie was no exception; I thought it was really good, and quite funny. It kind of creeped me out a bit to think about a rat in the kitchen, but once I got over that, it was an easy movie to enjoy. You should check it out if you have a chance.

What really surprised me though is what came after the movie. Roppongi Hills is a very new, very upscale area. It is kind of like a large Trump tower residence merged with a very upscale shopping mall and wall street business tower all rolled into one. And after we left the theater, down in the public space at the base of the tower, a festival was going on.

This wasn’t just any old festival either, it was a Obon Dance, a kind of festival that is similar to the Mexican “Day of the Dead”. Of course, like a lot of things in my life in Japan, I don’t really know the details about this, and am just judging it based on some information gleaned from a Japanese history class a few years back and whatever other random information I’ve picked up from numerous dubious sources over the years. I really should do some sort of research on the subject, but I kind of like living my life in Tokyo in a kind of haze of not-quite-understood cultural events and misinterpretations.

In my imagination this festival is about respecting your deceased relatives and showing them they way to a kind of heaven. According to the story that runs in my head, we build a big bonfire and there are specific dances around this bonfire that help the spirits of the dead find us, their remaining relatives on the Earth, and through these dances they find the way to a kind of personal place of rest. That sounds really nice to me. In fact, I was just talking to a good friend about this recently, who told me that “Japan is a good place to mourn.”

I think that is an insightful saying. Japan has been around a long time, and they have institutions and customs prepared for many events. When you look at this in a wider way, I am reminded of how at work there is a seeminging infinite variety of paperwork, each needing your personal stamp for processing, to cover any conceivable situation. Japanese people like to have a set formulae, a pattern, for ways to deal with expected or unexpected circumstances, and this extends to ceremonies.

It is timely because about a month ago, for the first time in my life, someone close to me passed away. My grandfather on my father’s side passed away. It was very sudden, quite soon after he went to the hospital, and I was thinking about going back to attend the funeral, but there just wasn’t time. That doesn’t mean that I can’t mourn, and I thought that going to an Obon Dance would be a good way to do that.

I’m not really sure how typically the Roppongi Hills Obon Dance was as far as these things go. It would be like trying to evaluate American block parties based on one that you once saw in Beverly Hills: almost certainly not the norm. Still, I really enjoyed it, and while I didn’t really see how this connected with the spirits of dead ancestors, it was a fun and interesting festival.

I’m going to try to go to another one in a more normal town next year. The season of Obon has already ended, but I’m glad that I got to see this one, and I think Grandpa is having a great time where-ever he is, telling jokes and funny stories.