After Life

(Wandafuru raifu)
Kore-eda Hirokazu, Japan, 1998
3 out of 4 stars

What starts out as a seemingly obscure philosophical exercise turns out to have an actual plot to it. This isn’t that surprising when you consider that a film about people in an afterlife waystation, compelled to choose one memory to live with for eternity, contains some ideas that could easily be forged into a Hollywood remake (violating the sprit or the original, naturally). The insertion of some human interest, mostly in the final third of the film, adds some poignancy to the proceedings, which I appreciated. I couldn’t help but wish that Kore-eda could have had just a slightly higher budget, though… basically, the actors have to keep saying they’re halfway to the afterlife until the audience decides to believe them, as there’s not much, visually, to back them up. There are also some weird moments, like when the heroine ventures out into the city, that had me wondering what we were supposed to be seeing, actually. This isn’t to suggest that there is nothing here visually, as the scenes where they film the chosen memories are creatively-depicted. Overall, this is a sedate film that does ask the viewer to do a certain amount of work, for good or ill. It’s worth a viewing, but it doesn’t entirely draw you in or carry you along.

Source: New Yorker DVD
4 October, 11:46 PM