After Life

Every Monday morning, a team of advisors welcome in a facility a group of people that has just died with the mission of helping each one of them to select their best memory that will last for the eternity in the first three days. On Thursday, filmmakers begin to recreate the selected memory, and in the end of the week they screen it in a movie theater and he or she moves to Heaven.

I bought "Wandâfuru Raifu", or "After Life" on DVD, since I was very intrigued with the summary on its cover. I saw this low budget movie spoken in Japanese with English subtitles and I found the story very original and provocative. The premise of rebuilding eternity along a week, like God created Earth, and Heaven be a projection of a movie of the best memory one could have, is fantastic. In spite of having unexplained points, like for example the need itself of lasting with only one single memory, and inconsistencies, like why the need of shooting the memory, if the staff can bring videotapes of the entire life, what matters is the originality of this unique movie. One point that has always impressed me in cinema is the fact the actors and actresses last forever in the eyes of the audiences along generations. In this movie, each one of us has the chance to be an actor or actress, and write our own screenplay. Further, I personally recalled many good moments of my life just because of the storyline of this movie, and I found how difficult it could be to select only one good moment of my life to last forever. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Depois da Vida" ("After Life")

I saw this movie in the theatre. It is always a pleasure to be at a viewing where there is spontaneous applause at the end. This is one of those movies. It speaks to your very soul. I understand that quite a few of the cast were not professional actors, but spoke from their own lifetime experiences. There is a very simple premise: you get to choose the most favourite moment of your life after you are dead and then help to recreate it, staging, cast of characters, scene - and the total non-professional manufacturing of this moment I found very touching - so that it can be savoured for all eternity. The perfect heaven. Of course some recently dead people can't think of anything, some remember very simple things, some are given assistance, like the record of their entire life in video form to review and extract a memory, if they can. The cast and direction is brilliant. I shudder to think of what modern Hollywood would do with this ("What dreams may come" being a case in point). It was all extremely simple and believable and has certainly had me talking about it for quite a while since I have seen it. 8 out of 10.

The movie is told in such a way that the people coming in reveals themselves in such a way that they all realize that there is a part of themselves in which it is truly good, even if it is deeply buried. The way it is filmed, as if it is a documentary, provides the cunning realism that you would not ordinarily achieve in regular film. Even at the end, we discover the true reason one of the counselor stayed around instead of moving on. Truly a touching and thought provoking film. It will make you try to think for yourself which memory you would cherish forever, even if it is single one.

This was a perfect film for watching on a quiet Sunday morning. It made me reflect on my own life, and realize that I would probably be one of the counselors in the afterlife.

It was brilliantly written and directed and one of the most innovative stories I have seen on screen. After death, you spend a week in a way-station to reflect on your life and take one memory with you. It is not an easy process as I discovered.

I was interested in the fact that some people can remember all the way back to the womb. Picking a happy memory before I was an adult is almost impossible for me, so I cannot imagine going back that far. Most people remember only to age three or four.

I was fascinated with the man who wanted to leave behind some evidence of his existence. One man could not remember any happy memories in his 70+ years, so he had to sit through video tapes, one for each year of his life, to help him. It seems that there was a connection with one of the counselors and this played out in an unusual way at the end. Choosing your best memory as the fact that you were someone else's best memory and that you made one person happy.

Most of us fall into the category expressed by one man. "I had a so-so education, a so-so job, a so-so marriage, and a so-so retirement." How do you pick a happy or important memory from that? I also liked one man's response when he picked his memory after lamenting that most of the memories of his life were bad. After being told he would forget all the bad memories, he exclaimed, "That truly is heaven." An unusual film that will be in my memory for a long time.

this movie was lovely. i could relate to the people and what they chose as their memories. i wanted to find a memory but i couldn't find one i would want to spend eternity with. so this movie has actually made me want to create beautiful memories before it is too late. see this movie, it might make you evaluate your own life.