After Life (5)

This was weird, not in a bad way, but in an interesting way - just like unexpectedly seeing a familiar cow and experiencing deja vu (deja moo?), it's both a little weird and interesting in some way. In this Japanese drama that is almost like a documentary, why things happen is not explained, they just do, and they just do for all eternity.

Seemingly ordinary people check in a dilapidated hotel, except that they are newly dead. And they are counselled by other dead people to select their most meaningfully memory. The memory is to be re-enacted to become the person's only memory for ever. It is simply an extraordinarily strange situation that is accepted. Shiori is reading World Encyclopedia because, as she says, "Time I've got plenty of". It is revealed in a delightful matter of fact way, why the counsellors are there. And Takashi, one of the counsellors, discovers that his old life in involved with one of the guests and finds his happy memory, much to Shiori's disappointment.

Listening to ordinary people choose their best moment of course makes you think of your own. The middle section of the film, the filming of the memories was boring - simply shots and noise of the crew filming in sound stages - I even started to do something else (writing). But it was the gentle reveals in the last third, why there were workers, Takashi's memory and Shiori wanting to keep all memory, that made this better film. I'm glad I watched it, but I wont see it again - 5 (it was ok but but sometimes borderline poor). It's Japanese title is "Wandafuru raifu" (wonderful life) but don't worry, if rusty Japanese won't suffice, subtitles come to the rescue.

Oh, by the way, the best death transition story I've ever seen - The Grim Fandango (10).