Christopher SoallAfterlife
May 29th 2009 01:13
Afterlife is an underrated musing directed by Koreeda Hirokazu, a gentle movie (if likely too talky for some viewers) about the passage between life and death. The premise is simple enough - you can take one memory with you from one life to the next, a memory that will be filmed for you in a warehouse like back-building with high-school backstage props. Part of the charm of the film is its low budget. This miniature Purgatory is obviously poorly funded. Too many people use the hair dryers at once and the lights go out. The buildings look weathered, down to the scuffed tiles. Who would want to linger here, in this pale, worn reflection of a college campus? And yet people work here, ushering the newly dead into their afterlife, tirelessly interviewing the newly self-bereaved and turning their memories into miniature B-movies.
Although there are several quiet narratives intertwined here, the movie has a thematic unity: how do you come to terms with your life? Can you? Can you wrap up all your essence into a single moment and take it away with you as illustrative of your prime purpose, whatever that may have been? The difficulty of defining your life, or perhaps more importantly, finding those points where your life intersected with another and made it meaningful, is underscored in this film. Even the good cannot be sure that they are good when all is finished, the mediocre feel precisely thus. What is joy? Is a moment of peace under a cherry tree enough, or do you have to be Mother Theresa to be deserving of even what happiness you found?
The Japanese title in fact translates to "Wonderful Life," fitting, I think. This is, in its subdued way, a celebration of the subtle ways we save each other from despair and lift each other up. It reminded me of "It's a Wonderful Life," where we may not be aware of the effect we have on our loved ones, on everyone, in the moment - but what would have happened if there had never been an us at all?
Although there are several quiet narratives intertwined here, the movie has a thematic unity: how do you come to terms with your life? Can you? Can you wrap up all your essence into a single moment and take it away with you as illustrative of your prime purpose, whatever that may have been? The difficulty of defining your life, or perhaps more importantly, finding those points where your life intersected with another and made it meaningful, is underscored in this film. Even the good cannot be sure that they are good when all is finished, the mediocre feel precisely thus. What is joy? Is a moment of peace under a cherry tree enough, or do you have to be Mother Theresa to be deserving of even what happiness you found?
The Japanese title in fact translates to "Wonderful Life," fitting, I think. This is, in its subdued way, a celebration of the subtle ways we save each other from despair and lift each other up. It reminded me of "It's a Wonderful Life," where we may not be aware of the effect we have on our loved ones, on everyone, in the moment - but what would have happened if there had never been an us at all?
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