![]() Watanabe apologies to Takashi for causing Takashi trouble and picking a memory so late. ![]() Near the end of the week, Watanabe decides which memory to keep. Takashi requests Watanabe to be assigned to another counsellor but his request is not granted. He, like the other clerks, was unwilling to choose a memory and must remain in limbo, working at the processing center, until they choose a memory. Takashi died in his early twenties in the Philippines in World War II and has been working at the processing center since then. Takashi learns from the films that Watanabe's wife (from Watanabe's arranged marriage) was also Takashi's love of his life and fiancee, and that the two men are about the same age. To jog his memory, Takashi plays back excerpts from a file of year-by-year videotapes recording Watanabe's life. Takashi has been assigned to help Ichiro Watanabe, a 70-year-old man who glumly remembers his dull, conventional life in an arranged marriage as unfulfilling. The story pays most attention to the two younger counsellors, Takashi and Shiori. A wild-haired 21-year-old wearing leather pants refuses point-blank to choose anything at all. An older man incessantly talks about sex and prostitutes, but ultimately chooses a memory in which his daughter hands him the bouquet at her wedding. A 78-year-old woman talks about a new dress her brother bought her for a childhood dance recital, a brother she loved and took care of "until the very end." A prostitute remembers a client who was kind a potential suicide victim recalls what made him pull back from the brink an old man remembers the breeze on his face when he rode a trolley to school. Told that 30 other children/teens have chosen Disneyland rides, she is gently coaxed into coming up with something more original from her childhood (the scent of fresh laundry and the feeling of her mother, whom she was cuddling against). There is also a teenager whose happiest memory is a ride at Disneyland. ![]() There is an aviator whose happiest moments were spent flying through the clouds. There is a gentle old woman whose fondest memory is cherry blossoms. Lengthy interviews take place in the lodge, with each person having different perspectives of their lives. Twenty-two souls of different ages and backgrounds arrive and are received by the counsellors, who explain to them their situation. They will spend eternity within their happiest memory. In this way, the souls will be able to re-experience this moment for eternity, forgetting the rest of their life. They are given just a couple of days to identify their happiest memory, after which the workers design, stage and film them. 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. Plot Ī small, mid-20th century social-service-style structure is a way station between life and death. In August 2021, The Criterion Collection announced a re-release of the film, in a 2K remaster together with interviews, deleted scenes, audio commentary and an essay by novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen. The film received seven awards and eight nominations worldwide. The film was also shown at the 1998 San Sebastián International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI prize "for its universal theme, its empathy for nostalgia and its homage to cinema as transcending life". Premiered on 11 September 1998 at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival and distributed in over 30 countries, the film brought international recognition to Kore-eda's work. After Life, known in Japan as Wonderful Life ( ワンダフルライフ, Wandafuru Raifu), is a 1998 Japanese film edited, written, and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda starring Arata, Erika Oda and Susumu Terajima.
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