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After Life Director: Hirokazu Koreeda Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Letterbox Format: Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 118 minutes Studio: New Yorker Films Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2000-08-29 Buy from Amazon |
 "Wonderful Film"This is probably the best dramatic film I've ever seen. The acting is very good, and the story keeps you interested from the instant you here the premise until long after you're done watching it. ""After Life"""After Life" is quite simply the best film I have ever seen. "Eternity on a tape"If you could only choose one memory of your life to remember for all eternity, what would it be? That's the heart of this delicate film by Japanese director/writer Hirokazu Kore-eda. In the AFTER LIFE world, after death, people are sent to one of several waystations where they stay a week while deciding which memory to keep. This memory is then re-enacted and captured on film. At the week's end, the films are screened, and then the dead mysteriously move to the next stage of existence, within their single memory. We follow one week in the.... uh.... lives (whatever) of a group of caseworkers at one waystation, and the 22 souls that they work with during that week. Although (perhaps because) the premise of this film is fantastic and whimsical to the point of fragility, it is filmed mostly as a documentary (medium head shots of people talking and describing their favourite memories). Kore-eda's background is, in fact, as a TV documentarian. He interviewed hundreds of non-actors and filmed them. Ten of the 22 cases in the film (we are not told which) are people who were interviewed rather than actors reading from written parts. The caseworkers look like ordinary folks, as do the dead people, and the waystation looks like an old and dowdy college dorm. Very matter of fact. There is also an actual story that's woven through the film, which involves several of the caseworkers, and a few of their cases. It's so lovely, and so naturally told, that I don't wish to spoil it for anyone watching the film. The fascinating thing is that you can very easily distinguish and remember all the characters despite: - there being so many (25+) - the film being subtitled (and thus your attention partly split between reading and watching) - not recognizing a single person on screen (and thus, not being able to resort to the "yeah, the Tom Hanks guy" shortcut) - spending at least a minute interspersed through the film trying to figure out which memory of *your* life you'd choose - (if you're me) trying to figure out some more "rules" of the film's world as it's unfolding. My only criticism is that sometimes the actual photography is not polished. There are heads that get cut off in walking shots; all the non-static shots seem wobbly; lighting was somewhat uneven and the composition of shots (other than the static head shots) uneven. I hesitate to mention this since I'm sure most people don't notice this until it moves to the appallingly bad zone (which this film by no means reaches). "an experience to behold"Here exists one of the few films of this past year that truly lives up to its ambitiousness. Rather than branching out into weaker (and equally pretentious) limbs of personal philosophy, Hirokazu has chosen instead to produce an endearing and fantastically human snapshot of would-be, could-be existence. Barring the need for such extravagances as special effects, the film opts rather to move into a profoundly simple form, as though computerized editing techniques would not do the story, much less its characters, justice. Moreso, the style in which the script was derived is in itself quite a feat. As described by the Boston Phoenix, Hirokazu took it upon himself to poll 500 japanese citizens, most of whom elderly, asking them to provide the one most wonderous and profound memory that they could. Seamlessly blending this with the cosmic implications of the rest of the film, the experience begins to take on new dimensions. Ultimately one finds the need to kick oneself from time to time, pinch one's own cheek, and remember that the bulk of this is real, despite its purgatorial, and at times, super-existential, feel. The premise runs as such: men and women after death make their way to a waystation of sorts between life and eternity, and are requested to provide one memory. This memory being all that they remember on into infinity, it is something of a monumentous decision, and as is to be expected, some have difficulty doing so. It is thus these few, who after one week's stay are still unable to choose, that go on to become the staff at said waystation, aiding and interviewing those who pass through. Highly recommended to anyone fascinated by a perhaps not altogether contrived view of time spent after death. I, myself, an atheist, still found something magical in it, so perhaps those who commit to a particular belief will see something even more mystical in its depths. "What Would You Choose?"Kore-Eda lays out a simple premise for this film shot in the documentary style he favors. The recently deceased arrive at a non-descript office building in a seen-better-days part of a city and are told in individual interviews that before proceeding to afterlife they are to choose one moment of their lives that they wish to carry with them for all eternity. The staff on site (and it is a real revelation when you realize at some point in the film who they are) will help them as necessary to choose, nudging them when the selection might be, let's say, not quite individual enough. The staff then set to work with their fairly woeful and low-tech props and camera equipment to film that moment for the dead one's lasting memory. In one case, for example, a man's recollection of flying requires modifying the one stock plane available. This is a film of quiet tenderness, respect, humor, and regret. An affirmation of the simple, wondrous fact of human existence, it is also in its gentle plot line a four-sided love story across the boundary of life, this stopping place and beyond. When the inevitable time comes for all of us, a chance to recall this film may make the moment of letting go easier. |
