Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda's Afterlife (1999) places the dead in an institutional way-station, where they must decided upon a memory from their life which they wish to live on with into the afterlife; Koreeda seems to claim, through the time (the film takes place over a week)given to these rich descriptions of the memories in the film, that aesthetic details constitute lived reality--and perhaps make the living worth it, but he also places the film's more profound question marks on those who can't decide, the employees of the institute. Koreeda's technique is interesting--not only does the stoic institution nonetheless suggest a layered warmth found unexpectedly in the often snow-filled outer courtyard--since the material for the film comes from actual interviews, not with the dead, but with individuals to whom he posed the question of what memory they would live on in. The purpose of this film--tough to say--what Koreeda seems to address and thus to "do" is the question of death, via the idea that in order for death to count, your life memory must also count in some way. Although it is not immediately apparent, the film seems to address youth--even though there are also many aged people who have died, the youthful figures in the film are shocking since we often forget that their aliveness is their deadness, and in a way, their memories serve to frame the poignancy of the elder memories, as well.
Some thoughts on my project: I was intrigued with the idea in Antigone that "death longs," and I thought that in a way, Afterlife addresses the problem of how timelessness is always a problem of time. The film is not one that takes "action" in any direct way, but I am interested in thinking about how even such a "timeless" film can also address political and social issues. Another way of phrasing this is that i am interested in thinking about how death can come to be a social issue...
A few links:
- on the IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165078/
- interview with Kore-Eda: http://www.indiewire.com/people/int_Kore-Eda_Hirokaz_2A6E7.html
No comments:
Post a Comment