After Life (Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda, 1998)

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Date: October 26, 2017

Time: 9:30pm

Location: Downtown Independent

Address: 251 S Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

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Q&A with director Hirokazu Koreeda and Los Angeles Times

film critic Justin Chang to follow the screening!

 

Co-presented by the Yanai Initiative at UCLA, 

Waseda University, and the UCLA Film & Television Archive 

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After Life is set in a small mid-20th century social-service-style office, acting as a waystation, where the souls of the recently deceased are processed before entering heaven. "Heaven," for the film, is a single happy memory from one's life, re-experienced for eternity, which each of the deceased must choose within their seven days at the waystation.

 

The story pays most attention to two of the "counselors," Takashi (Arata) and Shiori (Oda). Takashi has been assigned to help an old man, Ichiro (played by Naito Taketoshi), 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 (after-) lives. (DCP*) ~ Presented as part of "Hirokazu Koreeda: Cinema from the Outside In"

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