After Life
To upload my response to this film would take digital storage that isn't available yet to us in the present. Attached to the core, visceral feelings are a multitude of reactions that span the consciousness and go far, far beyond that, into places I hope we know someday, but feel OK not knowing today.
This is Tarkovsky's Stalker for normal people. That's at least one of the many impressions I had during my After Life experience, which came up intermittently. I struggled with Stalker because I did not feel that the visuals lived up to the concept. I never felt like I was in any strange, foreign place, it just looked like grassland (then caves and such) to me. Throwing the bag of hardware to make sure the three central characters wouldn't get lost didn't much help it. In After Life, we are simply in some sort of old boarding school or in-patient facility where people come when they die to decide on a memory in which they'll live for eternity. Again, as in Stalker, the look didn't transport me, but here I let myself be led. With Stalker we have a picture that is highly philosophical, as well as religious, and while I quite liked it, all of the conversing, or perhaps professing, didn't mean as much as the images and words in After Life. After Life cuts more to the core of the normal person's life, full of love, angst, and nostalgia, centered around the ones we loved, the way we loved spending time, and all of the sensorial experience that come with those things. Both After Life and Stalker attempt to cut to the core of what everything means, what it is all about, but I prefer this simpler (on the surface) interpretation. Simple, but with infinite meaning to the normal person that finds much to love in life.
With the memories they have identified, the after life intake staff works to create a film based on the memory. They scout locations, they build sound stages and props, they design the sound based on what their clients tell them, and then they bring the client in to test them out. The meta element is rich and profound. It says, movies are as various as the people on the planet, there is no correct interpretation. The workers in this after life hub are the crew, attempting to bring the world of the writer-director (the deceased) to life according to their specifications. The creator than becomes the audience, and the end product becomes the thing the director must live with forever. Once you put something into the world, it is permanent. A titanic responsibility, even if in the end you're the one to which it means the most.
There is a rich point about memory in this film. It often points to the frailties of memory. Mr. Watanabe, one of the deceased, cannot think of a memory he wants to relive, so he's given a VHS tape of memories from each year of his life. The disclaimer is, of course, that these memories he's watching won't quite be accurate, but are a launching pad for him to find his memory with which he'll be forever. You can see recordings that sort of blunt the image of a person within them. Then, when the deceased are led to the sets of their memories, there are clearly flaws. The clouds that are coming at the pilot as he flies with deep pleasure through the vast sky don't exactly match what he wants, yet he feels the effect is correct. It hints at our minds filling in the blanks. Even as we watch films that are totally outside our experiences, our mind constantly seeks to fill-in the blanks. Therefore, our memories are both complete and fabricated by our own minds. Kore-eda portrays this elegantly, unpretentiously. He gets to his point with great generosity in spirit that pervades all of his work.
The primary staff members, or perhaps I should call them "after life counselors", that we spend our time with are Takashi Mochizuki and Shiori Satonaka, both people who died young, at ages 22 and 18, and maintain that appearance. Mochizuki carries with him the awfulness of the second World War, as he died from wounds he sustained in the Philippines at a young age. There is a sense that their occupations are essentially secure, and that they each belong here. When that is upended, these two must face a future that does not include memories of this place. They are not lovers or siblings or anything of that nature, but just people who care about each other. Again, as in the recent indie darling Little Fish or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we're confronted with the idea of losing memories. Indeed, we'll all do it at death, and we'll keep nothing with us, but there is no way to prepare for such a thing. There is pain in being one left behind, but not so much more than we can bear, the ending of this film being quite indicative of this notion.
Though it's shot in an old, but rather common building with its yard and its memories, as if it were also a deceased individual that is remembering itself being lovingly used, it's not terribly hard to suspend your disbelief at this being a branch office of the after life. Everyone is utterly convinced in the notion, and there is ample evidence that should satisfy. The video tapes of memories, the orderly way the business is run - people are in on Monday, find their memories by Wednesday, and have been moved on to eternal bliss by the time the week is over - and everyone's back stories assure you that yes, everyone is dead and in transition in this place. If life is the sum of experiences, interpretations, and emotions, everything is here. I mentioned the generosity in spirit of Kore-eda and his films, but the same is required of the viewer here. Admit sentiment, admit nostalgia. You're not so smart, you're not so interesting; if you were, you wouldn't really be this little carbon-based life form on this little ball of dirt in this immense, but probably also little universe. Deflate yourself, admit your frailties, fill yourself up with hope, love, and courage, and then see After Life.