Wandafuru Raifu, 1998
[After Life]
Early
Monday morning, four overworked, dedicated counselors are given a
motivational speech by their supervisor in preparation for the week's
heavy caseload. A distant bell tolls, and one by one, people emerge
from the fog into an empty station, declare their names to an unseen
receptionist, and bide their time in the waiting room before being
summoned. A gentle, mild-mannered woman, Tatara Kimiko, is the first
to be called in to meet her counselors, Mochizuke (Arata) and Shiori
(Erika Oda), who officially confirm that she has died. She nods with
courteous acceptance. Mochizuke proceeds to explain to Kimiko that
she has three days in order to select one memory from her lifetime.
The single memory will be reenacted on film by the staff, and will
serve as her only connection to her past - her physical existence
- into the afterlife. Other people seem to know immediately what memory
they want to capture for eternity - a trip to Disneyland or a sexual
encounter - but find themselves eventually selecting a more meaningful,
personal memory. Another chooses a fleeting moment of comfort and
humanity after experiencing a terrible ordeal. A brash young man,
Iseya, speaking to another counselor, interrupts the instructional
explanation. "So everyone ends up here? You mean whether you were
good or bad or whatever, all that stuff about going to hell if you're
bad... Not true? Everyone's here?" He disagrees with the abandoning
a lifetime of memories in favor of only one, and refuses to choose.
At another session, an expressionless, pensive old man, Ichiro Watanabe,
wants to find some evidence of his life, and Mochizuke arranges
for archived videotapes of Watanabe's life - from his arranged marriage
of convenience to his uneventful management career - to be sent for
his review. A third case proves to be difficult: a sweet-natured elderly
woman, Nishimura, whose memories have been inextricably locked within
the mindset of a little girl. How does a person already resigned to
her memories, choose a single one?
Hirokazu Kore-eda seamlessly synthesizes
the creative visual imagery of feature film with the provocative honesty
of the documentary to create the sublimely poignant and haunting After
Life. Similar to Alain
Resnais, Kore-eda examines the complex, symbiotic relationship
between memory and altered perception. Objective memory, as shown
through videotapes, provides a factual, dispassionate chronicle of
actual events. Perspective memory, as related by the subjects to their
receptive counselors, reflects a biased, emotional attachment to the
actual event, and is often affected by retrospective significance.
Interpretive memory, as recreated by the staff on film, is a fabrication
of the actual event, and is limited by time, resources, and the accuracy
of the information provided by the subject. Is one form of memory
more important than another? Does precise memory define truth, or
is ingrained memory an interactive process that leads to personal,
and ultimately relevant, truth?
© Acquarello 2000. All
rights reserved.
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An
elderly woman (Kikuko Hashimoto) abstractedly walks down the sidewalk
of a high traffic bridge, as she often does, determined to return
to her childhood village. Her granddaughter chases after her, imploring
her to come home, but she continues to walk on. When evening comes,
the grandmother's idiosyncratic ritual becomes cause for concern when
she does not return, and cannot be found. The girl, now a married
woman named Yumiko (Makiko Esumi), continues to have recurring dreams
of their last encounter, and is plagued with the guilt of her inability
to stop her grandmother from leaving. She wakes her husband, Ikuo
(Tadanobu Asano), who soporifically tells her to go back to sleep.
Perhaps, her grandmother will return in her dream.
A
radio broadcast issues a public service announcement reminding listeners
of the third anniversary memorial service for the victims of the Ark
of Truth cult disaster, a biological terrorist attack that introduced
a genetically engineered virus into the nation's water supply, leading
to the deaths of 128 people and an additional 8,000 illnesses. A quiet
and unassuming florist (Arata) selects a handful of flowers for a
store arrangement, before leaving work to visit a frail, elderly man
in a hospital. In another part of town, an energetic and personable
student named Masaru (Yusuke Iseya) hands out product advertisements
at a busy intersection before spending the evening with his girlfriend
at a video arcade. During a telephone conversation, he arranges to
spend the following day with a person named Atsushi who, he evasively
explains, is an old friend, and deliberately excludes his girlfriend
from the forthcoming reunion. Later, Masaru is observed spending idle
time with the florist along the train tracks before hurrying to collect
two passengers at the railway station: a married construction businessman
named Minoru (Susumu Terajima) and a reserved schoolteacher named
Kiyoka (Yui Natsukawa). The unlikely group of traveling companions
then venture off-road to a remote clearing. They have arrived at a
lake near the site of the cult compound in order to pray for the souls
of their loved ones - members of the Ark of Truth who perpetrated
the attack, then committed mass suicide. Returning to the clearing
after the solemn observance, they discover that their vehicle has
been stolen, along with a motorcycle that belonged to a surviving
cult member, Sakata (Tadanobu Asano), who has returned for the first
time since the attack in order to pay respect. With the approach of
darkness, the stranded travelers reluctantly decide to spend the evening
at the isolated cabin, and in the process, reflect on the inscrutability
and emotional distance of their loved ones in the days leading to
the fateful incident.