This flick was mentioned some time ago–but I just saw it, and at the least thought I’d throw up another nod. The scenario is a post-death fantasy where the recently-departed are asked to pick a single memory which they will inhabit (or something–we’re never really sure) from thereon out. What I liked especially was the rigorous sidestepping of whimsy or fantasy; the afterlife is a very solid place, the workers there follow a specific bureaucracy, and–nicest touch–the memory chosen is then reconstructed on film, a material re-enactment which the workers undertake very concretely (location scouting, sound effects, etc.).
Memory, Kincaid (aka Marco) will be glad to hear, is examined with both compassion and a shrewd dispassion. Everyone is making up what they need, and part of the bureaucrats’ job is to get people to recognize how they’re shaping, reshaping, fabulating a past…. But fabulation is not explicitly challenged or mocked–the “real” (material) re-enactment is itself explicitly a construction, but one consciously chosen and shaped…
Smart, engaging, very recommended.
Agreed. Really well worth seeing. Though when I saw it I was a little underwhelmed considering the very strong positive reviews it got at the time. With some distance now, it is a touching and very original film.
The bureaucracy of the afterlife and the workman like manner of it all bothered me a bit at first, considering how it played into the stereotypes of the Japanese. (At least they weren’t taking lots of pictures of the afterlife.)
Then I realized that this was probably a bit of an intentional joke on the director’s part, but I had no way of knowing no way or the other. That’s why a DVD commentary can be so useful. (Speaking of which, Spielberg gave some interesting reasons for making War of the Worlds on a TCM docuemtnary on Sci-fi films last night. It’ll run again, I’m sure. A well done doc by R. Schickel with Lucas, Spielberg, Cameron, Ridley Scott…)
The film was actually made way back in 1998 according to Imdb, and Hirokazu Koreeda’s latest film was released in the US earlier this year. I havent seen it, but will look for it on DVD sometime soon.
It’s called Nobody Knows and is quite different from After-Life. Imagine Grave of the Fireflies remade by Frederick Wiseman as a neo-realist take on Truffaut’s 400 Blows. Can I get anymore referential??? Still, as bleak as it was, I liked Nobody Knows. I have an Asian DVD but haven’t heard when it will be released in the states.
we recently watched this. that is to say, i watched it all, while sunhee got bored and fell asleep about 45 minutes in. i thought it was okay. all that stuff about creating, fabulating a past etc. that mike mentions is true enough but i found myself wondering only what one memory i would pick to spend eternity with. in other words, i reduced what for the lot of you was a moving, engaging film to a parlour game. i am also now going crazy trying to figure out in what other movie i’ve seen one of the after-life processors (not the young lead guy, the guy who gets the other young guy who refuses to choose a memory as his apprentice at the end).