"Parting is such a sweet sorrow." - Shakespeare
Have you ever imagined what your funeral would be like? While people usually avoid talking about death, my mind often wanders to the day of my funeral. Who will show up? Will people miss me? What would it be like to say goodbye to myself? While imagining one's death may feel bleak and fearful, imagining the funeral is an entirely different thing. Every funeral is a ritual. A farewell ritual. Even if grief is inevitable, I want my funeral also to be a celebration of my life and who I was. Death doesn't always have to be so full of sorrow and grief. It can be a mixture of sorrow and joy, of grief and nostalgia. Movies can be an effective medium to reflect on difficult topics, such as death. Some of these iconic movie scenes depicted funerals as a beautiful goodbye.
Captain Fantastic (2016)
Captain Fantastic takes on difficult topics like parenthood, adulthood, capitalism, and modernity in a brutally honest, bittersweet journey of one family. But one topic rises above the other. This movie forced its characters (and its audiences) to face death head-on. Viggo Mortensen plays Ben, a father of six children that tries to nurture them to survive in the wilderness while teaching them socialist thinking. Together they live in their own commune in the middle of the woods.
The conflict started when Ben's wife, Leslie, committed suicide after getting treatment in the hospital for bipolar disorder. Leslie's conservative parents, who opposed their daughters' ways of living, planned to bury her in a traditional Catholic way, with an eulogy from a priest who barely knows her. Meanwhile, Leslie's wish was to be cremated, with her ashes flushed down the toilet, and an outdoor memorial with singing and dancing. Because for Leslie, her funeral should be a celebration of the life cycle. Ben then takes his children on a quest to save their mother's corpse in order to give her the funeral she wants.
Throughout their quest, the family faced difficult challenges; an internal conflict of accepting Leslie's death and the way she died, to an external conflict of facing their conservative relatives who judged them and did not fully accept their presence as Leslie's own family. At the end of the movie, after a series of emotional rides, they finally succeeded in holding the funeral Leslie wants. Together they went to a cliff that overlooks a glistening sea. There, they stood in a circle around a bonfire, and they started to sing Leslie's favorite song, Sweet Child O' Mine.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (2017)
The next iconic scene is Yondu's funeral from Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. Superhero movies have to be fun. And this movie is probably the fun-nest out of all Marvel Studios franchises. With a catchy 80s soundtrack and entertaining comedy, Guardians of the Galaxy is the perfect family movie. But when the movie ends with the funeral of one of the toughest and sweetest characters in the galaxy, it successfully made me cry.
Yondu was the perfect character. He was not a black and white figure, often crossing the line between good and bad. But most importantly, beneath his tough exterior, he was the only figure who acted like a father to Peter. Throughout the movie, Yondu no doubt has made some questionable decisions. But in the end, Yondu managed to redeem himself by doing the ultimate act of love a parent can give to their child; by sacrificing himself to save Peter's life.
Yondu's death provides closure for both him and Peter. It also concludes his journey with redemption and forgiveness. After being shunned by the ravagers community, his fellow ravager leaders told Yondu that he wouldn't get a ravager funeral. But after hearing what he had done--saving Peter and helping defeat Ego, the ravager came to pay their respect and to bid farewell. To have your body cremated and your ashes thrown into outer space seems like a poetic way to celebrate your death (or life). Then, add a parade of fireworks to complete the celebration.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Unlike Captain Fantastic and Guardians of the Galaxy, there is no singing, no dancing, no parade of fireworks in the funeral scene of Royal Tenenbaum--the main character and the patrilineal figure of the Tenenbaums family. The Tenenbaums was a dysfunctional family, with three prodigy children and ambitious parents raising them to be the best at everything. Long story short, Royal's ambition ruined their childhood and his relationship with wife. Two of his children grew up to be depressed adults and one of them is basically still a child in an adult body. After being divorced by his wife and leaving his family behind, Royal shows up to their doorstep, claiming he has a terminal illness and requesting to make up for lost time. His lies added more chaos to the already broken family. Royal eventually sobered up, got a job, and tried everything he could to fix his relationship with his family.
Right until his death, a non-tragic death caused by heart attack, Royal was trying to make amends by his family. His children finally get a sense of a father figure in him, and Royal has finally accepted that his wife has found someone that can make her happy. During the funeral, there's a scene where it zoomed in on the writing on Royal's tombstone, which says "Died tragically rescuing his family from the wreckage of a destroyed sinking battleship." From the writing on the tombstone, the ambiguous expression of the family members, the credit song, Wes Anderson's color palette, everything seems so gloomy yet so calm and peaceful. Royal Tenenbaums burial was simple and short. No one shed a tear. But oddly, it gives a highly satisfying conclusion to the story.
(ANL)