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What is your most precious memory?
Koreeda Hirokazu asked what comes After Life in a film set in a halfway house for the dearly departed. He tackled meaning and memory in this slow paced almost documentary style film.
A small crew of after-life counselors greet the new arrivals to a drab, spare facility on Mondays. Everyone regardless of what they did or didn’t do on Earth make their way here. This week they have 22 people who have passed and must accomplish a task by Wednesday before they can move on. The task appears to be simple yet trips up several people. What is your most joyous or meaningful memory? They can only take a single recollection with them and will forget all the rest. A businessman felt like everything was humdrum about his existence and can’t remember an extraordinary event. A twenty-one-year-old refuses to choose based on principle calling into question the celestial system. Once memories are chosen, they are reenacted so that the person can travel to the next level.
As a fan of Defending Your Life I was curious about Koreeda’s take on the subject. I honestly needed either a better translation or better understanding of his afterlife philosophy. In a couple of scenes, the new arrivals were told the beloved memory was what they would live over and over. A Groundhog Day eternity of one occurrence on repeat sounded like Hell to me. Earlier in the film it was said that the chosen moment’s feeling would be what the person would experience for eternity. I might have been on the list of those unable to choose, that’s a heck of a commitment to a lone feeling/event.
There were times the film dipped into “inside baseball” territory as the sets were built and filmed for the characters’ revelatory choices. It felt like a low rent afterlife as most of the action took place in a rundown school with peeling paint and fuses that blew when too many people used their hairdryers at once. The sets built were rudimentary, bordering on high school play level. Why not just use the video tapes from the people’s lives that were available?
Memories and how we choose to remember them shape us into who we are and how we interact with others. Setting aside my concerns, I did like how Koreeda challenged not only the characters but also the audience to comb their memory banks for the most cherished event in their lives. Memories fade, morph, and expand as we live. During the process of searching for that crucial occasion, the film bids us to make meaningful memories while we can. Often it was not the grand things that held precious sway in a person’s life, but the small things that provided the most meaning. A mother’s caress, an autumn day on a bench connecting with someone else, even discovering their life was someone else’s treasured remembrance. Like most people, the characters led mundane lives of earning a living and taking care of the day-to-day details that can fill the hours of the days that turn into years. What can we do to find moments and people to cherish, something worth carrying forward? If you enjoy slow, thoughtful, reflective films, this is one to try.
13 September 2026
Casting note: Currently Iseya Yusuke is listed as a main, he is only in a few short, but pivotal scenes.
I was thrilled to see Kagawa Kyoko in the VHS memories!
A small crew of after-life counselors greet the new arrivals to a drab, spare facility on Mondays. Everyone regardless of what they did or didn’t do on Earth make their way here. This week they have 22 people who have passed and must accomplish a task by Wednesday before they can move on. The task appears to be simple yet trips up several people. What is your most joyous or meaningful memory? They can only take a single recollection with them and will forget all the rest. A businessman felt like everything was humdrum about his existence and can’t remember an extraordinary event. A twenty-one-year-old refuses to choose based on principle calling into question the celestial system. Once memories are chosen, they are reenacted so that the person can travel to the next level.
As a fan of Defending Your Life I was curious about Koreeda’s take on the subject. I honestly needed either a better translation or better understanding of his afterlife philosophy. In a couple of scenes, the new arrivals were told the beloved memory was what they would live over and over. A Groundhog Day eternity of one occurrence on repeat sounded like Hell to me. Earlier in the film it was said that the chosen moment’s feeling would be what the person would experience for eternity. I might have been on the list of those unable to choose, that’s a heck of a commitment to a lone feeling/event.
There were times the film dipped into “inside baseball” territory as the sets were built and filmed for the characters’ revelatory choices. It felt like a low rent afterlife as most of the action took place in a rundown school with peeling paint and fuses that blew when too many people used their hairdryers at once. The sets built were rudimentary, bordering on high school play level. Why not just use the video tapes from the people’s lives that were available?
Memories and how we choose to remember them shape us into who we are and how we interact with others. Setting aside my concerns, I did like how Koreeda challenged not only the characters but also the audience to comb their memory banks for the most cherished event in their lives. Memories fade, morph, and expand as we live. During the process of searching for that crucial occasion, the film bids us to make meaningful memories while we can. Often it was not the grand things that held precious sway in a person’s life, but the small things that provided the most meaning. A mother’s caress, an autumn day on a bench connecting with someone else, even discovering their life was someone else’s treasured remembrance. Like most people, the characters led mundane lives of earning a living and taking care of the day-to-day details that can fill the hours of the days that turn into years. What can we do to find moments and people to cherish, something worth carrying forward? If you enjoy slow, thoughtful, reflective films, this is one to try.
13 September 2026
Casting note: Currently Iseya Yusuke is listed as a main, he is only in a few short, but pivotal scenes.
I was thrilled to see Kagawa Kyoko in the VHS memories!
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