After Life

After death, people arrive at a way station that looks less like the afterlife than an old-fashioned social services office. Over the course of a week, a staff of counselors interviews the newly deceased, notes down their details, and helps each of them settle on one memory to carry into eternity. That choice proves difficult for some, who cannot settle on a single moment or must search their past for something worth keeping, while the counselors themselves still struggle with the same decision. Once a memory is chosen, it is recreated and filmed, and the departing guests watch the results before moving on.

Hirokazu Kore-eda directed and wrote this Japanese drama, his second feature in a directing career that began with Maborosi in 1995 and continued with Nobody Knows in 2004. The cast includes Arata Iura, Erika Oda, Susumu Terajima, Takashi Naito, Kei Tani and Kyoko Kagawa. It runs 118 minutes and was produced through TV Man Union, Engine Film and Sputnik Productions.

On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 7.2 out of 10 from 297 votes, while critics' reviews give it 7.3 out of 10 across 35 write-ups, so the two measures sit close together. Released in April 1999, it remains an early work in the director's filmography.