After Life DVD cover

After Life ("Wandafuru raifu", lit. "Wonderful Life") is a 1998 movie by Japanese director Koreeda Hirokazu (是枝裕和) starring Arata, Oda Erika and Terajima Susumu. Image File history File links AfterLife. ... Image File history File links AfterLife. ... 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ... The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ... Hirokazu Koreeda (是枝裕和 Koreeda Hirokazu, born in 1962 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese film director. ... Arata (born September 15, 1974, Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese actor. ... Susumu Terajima (寺島進 Terajima Susumu, born 12 November 1963) is a Japanese actor. ...

Plot summary

Like Giuseppe Tornatore's A Pure Formality, Koreeda's After Life is set in a waystation where the souls of the recently deceased are processed before entering heaven. "Heaven," for the film, is a single memory from one's life. Giuseppe Tornatore (born 27 May 1956 in Bagheria, Sicily) is an Italian film director. ... The heavens are the sky, the celestial sphere, or outer space. ...

The movie is set in a structure resembling a decrepit travel lodge. A group of people who have just died check in at the beginning of each week, and the "social workers" resident in the lodge explain to each guest their situation. The newly-dead have until Wednesday to decide what the single happiest or most significant memory from their life is, and then for the rest of the week the workers make short movies to recreate each person's chosen memory.

At the end of the week, the movies are shown in the screening room. As soon as each person sees his or her own memory, he or she vanishes to whatever unknown state of existence lies beyond and takes only that single memory with them into eternity.

The story revolves around two of the counselors, Takashi (Arata) and Shiori (Oda). Takashi has been assigned to help an old man, Ichiro (played by Naito Taketoshi), select his memory. On reviewing videotape of Ichiro's life, Takashi learns Ichiro married his fiancée, after he (Takashi) was killed during World War II. Takashi has Ichiro assigned to another counselor, but is still troubled by his memories, causing both him and his quasi-romantic interest Shiori to re-examine their (after-) lives. World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons like the atom bomb World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th-century conflict that engulfed much of the globe...

The stories of the guests and the workers' past life and how each individual dealt with them in the way-station give the movie a lot of depth. Without reading the subtitles or understanding the dialog, the look and feel of the movie gives absolutely no hint on the serious theme behind it. Perhaps such unexpected and unique story telling technique won the movie its awards.

Koreeda got his start directing television documentaries for TV Man Union. Much of the action in After Life is shown as interviews conducted with the recently deceased regarding their lives. Some of these interviews were scripted, but many were done impromptu, with real people (not actors) reminiscing about their own lives. A television documentary is a documentary or a series of documentaries that are meant to be broadcasted on television. ... interview An interview is a conversation between two or more people where questions are asked to obtain information about the interviewee. ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ...

External links

• After Life at the Internet Movie Database