After Life (film)


After Life, known in Japan as Wonderful Life, is a 1998 Japanese film edited, written, and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda starring Arata, Oda Erika and Terajima Susumu.

Plot

A small, mid-20th century social-service-style structure is a way station between life and death. Every Monday, a group of recently deceased people check-in: the social workers in the lodge ask them to go back over their life and choose one single memory to take into the afterlife. They are given just a couple of days to identify their happiest memory, after which the workers design, stage and film them. In this way, the souls will be able to re-experience this moment for eternity, forgetting the rest of their life.
Twenty-two souls of different ages and backgrounds arrive and are received by the counsellors, who explain them their situation. Lengthy interviews take place in the lodge, with each person having different perspectives of their lives, some being more reluctant in indicating a significant memory.
The story pays most attention to the two younger counsellors, Takashi and Shiori. Takashi has been assigned to help an old man, Ichiro Watanabe, pick a significant memory in his ordinary life. Reviewing the videotapes of Mr Watanabe's life, Takashi discovers that the old man had married his former fiancée, Kyoko, after Takashi had been killed during World War II while he was 22. Takashi has Watanabe assigned to another counsellor but is still troubled by his memories, causing both him and Shiori to re-examine their lives.
Near the end of the week, Mr Watanabe decides which memory to keep. Takashi reveals to him that all the counsellors staying in the lodge are souls who refused or were unable to choose a memory. On Saturday, the hosted souls watch the films of their recreated memories in a screening room and, as soon as each person sees their own, they vanish.
Takashi, after talking Shiori about his life and watching his fiancée's selected memory from the archive, eventually decides to have his sliver of life filmed and abandon the way station forever.

Cast

Critical response