Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

SnoopyStyle The dead arrive at a way station where counselors guide them to choose one memory to live with for eternity. The place is an overgrown administration building. After the counselors help the arrivals pick their memories, the film crew recreates the memory and the arrivals watch the tape. After watching the tape, they disappear into the next stage. The counselors await for the new week and the next arrivals.I love this idea. It's got great potential. However it feels a little like watching some kind of government bureaucracy. No matter how touching it gets. This has a DMV type of pacing. There is one fun section where they are recreating the memories. It could funnier but I like that section. I love this movie idea but two hours is a stretch.

Desertman84 After Life is a film by Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda that features Arata, Oda Erika and Terajima Susumu.After Life is a brilliant meditation on death and memory. The premise of the movie is simple: over the span of a week, twenty-two souls arrive at a way station (which looks like an old junior high school) between life and death, where they are asked to choose just one memory to take into the afterlife. The new arrivals include an elderly woman, a rebellious dropout, a teenage girl, and a 70-year-old war veteran. Once they have chosen a memory, it is recreated and filmed by the staff of the way station, using all the tricks and illusions of cinema: cotton balls are used to mimic clouds, a fan is used for a summer breeze.The movie is set in a building resembling a decrepit travel lodge or social services institution. Every Monday, a new group of recently deceased people check in, and the "social workers" in the lodge explain to each guest their situation. The newly-dead have until Wednesday to identify the single happiest memory. For the rest of the week, the workers at the institution work to design and replicate each person's chosen memory, thereby replicating the single happiest moment of that person's life, and it is filmed.At the end of the week, the recently deceased watch the films of their recreated happiest memories in a 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, to live and relive for eternity.The story revolves around two of the counselors, Takashi and Shiori . Takashi has been assigned to help an old man, Ichiro,select his memory. Takashi reviews videotape of Ichiro's life and learns that Ichiro had married Takashi's former fiancée after Takashi had been 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 afterlivesThis film is not a typical Hollywood feel-good film; but its unhurried pace and lack of melodrama, like its subject, may linger in the memory long afterwards that viewers may engage in a discussion about this movie.With its meditative, humanistic tone, it is the cinematic reminiscence of limbo itself, this transitional space of contemplation and nostalgia.Finally,it is an affecting and unpredictable film that lingers on one's mind long after viewing.In short,it is one special film.

gentendo I would like to observe the character arc of counselor Mochizuki and how he grew within the one week period at the afterlife institution. He is introduced as a seemingly "average" individual; one who does not attract much attention let alone curiosity. In fact, my attention was originally geared heavily towards Watanabe's story simply because his struggle to choose a favorite memory evoked a lot of interest and mind participation. Contrariwise, Mochizuki seemed to possess no inner conflict that was worthy of inquiry, although his outer conflict, too, at first seemed mildly intriguing (i.e. having to help Watanabe find a memory). Ironically, however, as the beauty of Watanabe's character unraveled, it carefully led to the discovery and beauty of Mochizuki's character.Both of their worlds merged together during private interview sessions, creating long awaited answers and long lost harmonies between their pasts. They learn in one particular session that they both share the same dilemma: the battle to choose a perfect memory. In addition to sharing the same dilemma, they also share the same generation as well as lover (Kyoko). With these discoveries, they both become, in a sense, the symbol of overlapping ovals portrayed on the institution's flag; a metaphor for how it takes two people earnestly involved in the other's life to discover self-identity. Each needs the other and each becomes part of the other person's discovery of happiness.Given these revelations into Mochizuki's past, his character suddenly becomes incredibly dynamic and provocative; one who is on the same empathetic level as Watanabe. We learn that he is not simply at the institution to help others find their memories, but that the entire staff, including himself, is placed in counseling positions because they themselves never chose a memory to live with for eternity. It would seem, then, that the staff is being poetically revealed by the director as restless beings living in purgatory.The idea of restlessness and inner turmoil (in the staff) is illustrated by the contrasts of camera movement. In the beginning, most of the shots are static and evenly framed. We are observing the majority of shots through the staff's eyes, which gives the film a documentary type lens (especially during the interviews). As a result, this type of camera-work creates the illusion of making the audience think that the staff is well-balanced and in control, both internally and externally. After all, they are the ones with the camera and choose how to focus the shots during interviews. The irony of this, however, is later exposed when we learn that each staff member's progression towards heaven is stultified because they never chose a memory—hence their positions as staff members. As soon as we learn this (which if I recall happens on Thursday) the camera-work becomes more hand-held, shaky and off kilter.This contrast in camera-work becomes even more beautiful and poignant because it also reflects the two stages that the staff undergoes during both preproduction and production of those whose lives they wish to change. In preproduction, they gather all the material they need from the recently deceased (via interviews) in order to recreate their memories on film. The preproduction sequences (the interviews) are shot with well balanced and controlled frames (perhaps an expression of the more controlled side of film-making). As the staff travels into the actual production of recreating their guests' memories, the camera-work then turns towards the more shaky and imbalanced frames (perhaps an expression of the more difficult and chaotic part of film-making: the actual shooting itself).It was as if the camera was making a philosophical commentary on the nature of freewill and its relation to heaven and hell. That is, to choose explicitly one's destiny (or in this case, one's memory) means to live a well balanced, evenly framed existence; and contrariwise, to explicitly not choose one's destiny, but to neutrally balk on the sidelines means to live an existence of uncertainty and imbalance.This leads now to the reason I chose Mochizuki. Unlike most who surround him, he willingly chooses to end his inner pain by realizing (with the help of others) that true happiness is not found by dwelling upon one's own memories, but by being a part of some else's memories. When asked about his earliest memory, he recalls an intense and vivid memory of snow. Snow is a symbol of his rebirth; the delicate and soft coat that whitens out his previous life and gives birth to his new life—a life that he was only able to discover through the people he met at the institution, and more especially his relationship with Watanabe. The memory he chooses, then, becomes his realization into the insight of what happiness is; a simple moment that came full circle into his mind as he sat on a nostalgic park bench thinking about those in whom he loved.

doctorsmoothlove What happens when you die? Are you transported to a state of eternal happiness or do you spend the rest of eternity in damnation? The Abrahamic religious view of the afterlife is very black and white. It leaves little room for the imagination. However, non-Western cultures have different concepts of the afterlife. Through watching various anime and reading graphic novels, I've come to the conclusion that the Japanese, at least partially, may view the afterlife as determined by the individual. In After Life, (the English title) Hirokazu Kore-eda elaborates on this concept. In the film, people attend a camp to determine which of their many memories they wish to keep before departing to the afterlife. They crew at the camp reacts this memory into a mini-film and the recently deceased live with this memory for the rest of eternity.After Life employs non-actors for the majority of the screen time. These people have no formal training, which makes their lines appear all the more genuine. When they speak, their words have an honesty about them which cannot be staged. Something remarkable about the film is that it doesn't distinguish its characters by developing them, but with the unique nature of the memories they have. Furthermore, their memories are realistic and touching. Some people wish to cherish the memory of a lover; while others (especially those who were young when they died) choose a memory of childhood. A prominent theme is the comforting effect that memory has for individuals.The staff at the unnamed camp is the most mysterious of all. We are not told why they are there, but once we think more of the film's premise. The staff is composed of those who could not choose a memory and remain there to guide others to afterlife. Are they condemned live in a purgatory-state of anxiety or are have they chosen to remain there? The film offers a slight answer to this query, but it isn't necessary. The means by which it does this is the interaction of a staff member with an arrival. We learn that some of the staff wishes to take responsibility for their actions by not forgetting them.Kore-eda treats the question he proposes with much earnestly. He doesn't present anything to distract this message. There is no antagonist other than the people themselves. This does much for the film's credibility. There is no problem with the progression of the plot, nor is there a plot hole. Some criticize the film because the dead attendees sleep, eat, and why must the memory be recreated. If someone you know reads a review and asks you this, suggest that they shouldn't the film. Such petty criticism is unjustified. The film doesn't attempt to convince us of its reality. Kore-eda wants to show us his idea, and he adds these scenes to help us identify with the workers. This is why the leader reminds the others that they shouldn't become attached to the patrons.How can a film with no protagonist, no character development, and no special effects be so warmly received? After Life is able to do this because it takes a different approach to entertaining its audience. It presents an actual topic (death) and elaborates on its idea of what happens thereafter. This approach mimics the technique used by several documentaries. The end result is the viewer's satisfaction in having watched director Kore-eda's proposal of the afterlife. One may fastidiously criticize the non-essential scenes of the film, but this criticism ignores the existential question the film proposes. While few will see this film, those who do will recall the experience vividly. The film distinguishes itself by analyzing a concept with no superlatives.