After Life [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

After Life [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda, Kore-Eda Hirokazu Cast: Arata
Arata
, Taketoshi Naito
Taketoshi Naito
, Erika Oda
Erika Oda
Hirokazu Koreeda
After Life [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

After Life [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda, Kore-Eda Hirokazu Cast: Arata
Arata
, Taketoshi Naito
Taketoshi Naito
, Erika Oda
Erika Oda
Hirokazu Koreeda

Blu-ray (Subtitled)

$39.99 
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Overview

Like his previous drama Maborosi (1995), Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life is a brilliant meditation on death and memory. The premise of After Life 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. In preparation for this project, Kore-eda interviewed 500 people from all walks of life about their memories. The film freely cuts between footage of these interviews, actors improvising, and actors reading scripts. Just as Kore-eda fuses documentary elements with a fictional narrative, we see over the course of the film how memories are distorted, improved on, and revised; and it is these subjectively constructed memories that the new arrivals value most. This 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.

Product Details

Release Date: 08/10/2021
UPC: 0715515262910
Original Release: 1998
Rating: NR
Source: Criterion Collection
Language: English
Time: 1:59:00
Sales rank: 9,150

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits
Arata Takashi
Taketoshi Naito Ichiro
Erika Oda Shiori
Susumu Terajima Satoru
Naito Takashi Takuro
Hisako Hara Kiyo
Kei Tani Ken-nosuke Nakamura
Kisuke Shoda Toru Yuri
Kazuko Shirakawa Nobuko Amano
Yûsuke Iseya Yusuke Iseya
Akio Yokohama Security Guard
Sayaka Yoshino Kana Yoshino
Kyôko Kagawa Kyoko Watanabe
Toru Yuri Actor
Akio Yokoyama Actor
Yasuhiro Kasamatsu Composer

Technical Credits
Hirokazu Koreeda Director,Screenwriter
Masayuki Akieda Producer
Shiho Sato Producer
Yutaka Shigenobu Executive Producer
Masahiro Yasuda Executive Producer
Osamu Takizawa Sound/Sound Designer
Kore-Eda Hirokazu Director
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