After Life
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DVD details
Actor: Erika Oda, Susumu Terajima ArataDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-09-25
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: New Yorker
DVD Reviews of After Life
DVD Review: The Most Compelling Question -- "What If...?"
Summary: 5 Stars
*
It is extremely rare for me to grace a film release with the coveted ''Five Star'' for a review score, but let me state for the record that dispite this scoring system's limitation to only ''five'' stars, I give Koreeda Hirokazu's ''After Life'' (Japanese title: ''Wonderful Life'') ''Nine Stars!'' It is a film that should be seen and taken to heart, despite whatever theological or eschatological beliefs the viewer may have. (This was not designed as or intended to be a religious film ... if it causes the viewer to reflect more deeply upon their particular religious ideology or to meditate on spiritual matters that's not necessarily a bad thing, but film clearly addresses something else entirely.)
Inspired by experiences he witnessed in his own family life , Koreeda-san presents the viewer with an intriguing premise: After death, you are taken to a processing center (or ''Limbo,'' if you will) ... While there you are given a deadline of only three days to choose just one memory that you can take with you into eternity -- These memories are then reproduced on film and shown on screen inside a special movie theatre that also serves as the launching pad to take you to your ''final destination'' as you ''relive'' (view) your most cherished memory.
The ''Limbo'' situation, as portrayed in this film, is unnervingly esoteric and confusing, and yet it offers an amazingly refreshing break from the stereotypically pristine, anticeptic, sterile, ''impersonal'' visual representations of post-life scenarios we've all been force-fed throughout history (much like the skinny effeminate visual representations of Jesus) and presents us with a setting that actually exudes a feeling of warmth, comfort, compassion, and familiarity, despite the obviously near-ramshackled and uninspiring state of this particular transfer point.
Some viewers may be a little put-off by the slowness of the film's pace, but this is extremely necessary for the important character development that takes place. Granted, the film could have done better by providing us with fewer ''initiates'' going through this particular processing phase, so as to allow for even deeper character development; at the same time, however, processing such a large group of people at one time, as presented in the movie, as well as the number of ''interviewers,'' provides us with a smorgasbord of personalities and motivations which highlights the vast differences and uniquenesses of the characters on screen and gives us added motivation to reflect on our own differences and uniquenesses, as well as how we act and interact with one other. (The final scene with Arata-san's character, ''Mochizuki,'' is especially touching.)
No, the film does not answer all of the questions it poses, nor does it really try to, nor do I think it should -- it is, for all intents and purposes, an examination into the human soul, if you will, and merely intends to have its viewers reflect on the more important questions raised and to motivate us into taking a long, deep, hard look at our very short lives and reflect on our most dear and cherished moments, and to not only ask ourselves ''which one'' memory would we choose to take with us and why, but to also ask ourselves if it could even be possible for us to select just one.
(For a deeper understanding of what Koreeda-san was trying to accomplish with this film, be sure to read the segment entitled ''Director's Statement'' on the DVD edition of the film.)
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Description of After Life
This unpretentious, endearing film is a modest triumph. Based on interviews with more than 500 people about the one memory they would choose to take with them to heaven, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-Eda has modeled a unique blend of documentary and fiction that addresses the vagaries of memory but also what it means to make films. After Life transpires in a sort of way station where the dead must select one memory to be re-created on film and taken on with them forever, relinquishing everything else. Over the span of a week, a dedicated group of caseworkers tease out self-deceptions as well as real epiphanies from 22 different lives. An old woman remembers reuniting with her husband on a crowded bridge after World War II; a man recollects the breeze felt on a tram ride the day before summer vacation; a successful man faces his own treachery. Remembering becomes a courageous act in the casual exposition of this lovely film. --Fionn MeadeBestsellers in DVD
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