Watching: After Life
May. 14th, 2019 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartNot the Ricky Gervais Netflix show, but a 1998 Japanese film directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, After Life is set in a kind of waystation where a small team work with the recently deceased to identify the one memory they want to retain in the afterlife. Each Monday, a new batch of deceased people arrive; each Saturday, they sit down with the team to watch the filmed re-creations of their memories, after which they are instantly translated to the next stage of existence, retaining only that single memory.
Set in a run-down institutional building with bare winter trees outside and filmed in murky sepia tones, the film follows one group of deceased people through their week in the facility and their interactions with the counsellors whose job it is to help them identify the one memory that will sum up their life. It's a slow, gentle, thoughtful film, poignant without being sentimental, and I liked it a lot.
Set in a run-down institutional building with bare winter trees outside and filmed in murky sepia tones, the film follows one group of deceased people through their week in the facility and their interactions with the counsellors whose job it is to help them identify the one memory that will sum up their life. It's a slow, gentle, thoughtful film, poignant without being sentimental, and I liked it a lot.
