After Life
Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life (1998) is an ode to memory and the deceased, offering a sometimes wonderful rumination on what memory one would select if he/she could only take one memory with him/her into the after life. In terms of this singularity, the film links itself up with Zen's idea of contentment pretty well, and the scenes of memory's recreation and recovery are undoubtedly strong. Yet for all of this, After Life is probably Kore-eda's least interesting of his efforts that I've seen thus far (Nobody Knows and Maborosi being the other two, both of which balance on perfection).Takashi Mochizuki (Arata) is one of four counsellors who strive to help the recently deceased settle on one memory that will stay with them throughout all of eternity. Yet while the successes of the film lie in analyzing the recently deceased and trying to localize a singular image or moment of pure reflection and contentment, the weaknesses lie in the relationships between Mochizuki and the female trainee counsellor, Shiori Satonaka (Erika Oda).
Kore-eda clearly seeks to underscore an ambivalent but desired relationship in Shiori's mind, yet he never really develops the proper dynamics into their relationship for there to be true conflict. Interestingly, the youngest counsellor Mochizuki is probably one of the oldest, since one permanently remains the aged that they were when they died, so that even though Mochizuki died from injuries suffered in World War II, he still looks young and youthful here. But whereas he is forever committed to the fiancee that he left behind, Kore-eda leaves the emotion too far understated, which forces the inevitable loss to simply not be as engaging as it could be.
Still, it's nonetheless a good film, and the stories that the deceased reveal make up for the weaknesses of the counsellor's characters. Kore-eda interviewed hundreds of people, trying to locate what desires and memories people would wish to return to, and this understanding is woven throughout the dead's stories. I just wish Kore-eda had been more emphatic in playing up the dynamics of the counsellor's relationships...
After Life: 7.5/10
posted by Paul @ 10:14 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I saw this in college, I enjoyed it. It is is an interesting way to ask a fundamental question about life: what memories are worth keeping of forgetting?
Indeed it does ask the fundamental question of life. I was chatting with a professor down in Florida earlier in the year, and we were trying to decide why this influx of films about memory (Eternal Sunshine, Memento, Mulholland Dr., 2046, After Life) has occurred.
Is it a commentary on our desire to now more than ever reclaim our connection to the world around us, is it based it contemporary trauma and a reaction to that, or what?
We couldn't really figure out a concrete answer, though it's probably worth a critical study in and of itself...
go to the library and check out the book "lost in the cosmos" by Walker Percy, and read the first chapter p.17-19 in my copy. its a funny answer to the question, and remember it was written in 1983, there seems to be a reference to Dead Ringers as well.
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