I only heard of this 1998 Japanese film some two decades after its release when I saw a play based on it performed at London’s National Theatre. Coincidentally, just a few months later, the film was shown as part of a Japanese season at the British Film Institute which is next door to the theatre so naturally I took the opportunity to see it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Written, directed and edited by Hirokazu Kore-eda, it has a wonderful plot device: when people die, they find themselves in a kind of limbo where they have to chose their happiest memory which will then be reconstructed for them and be their sole\/soul memory for the rest of eternity. The work explores what we remember and why and how we recall and reconstruct our memories.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film has a minimalist look: shot in black and white in one nondescript building, the whole operation – especially the recreation of the chosen memories – is low-key and amateurish. It looks like a documentary which is not surprising: Kore-eda started his career as a maker of television documentaries, some of the interviews are selected from more than 500 that he shot in development of the film, and even the fictional interviews are sometimes improvised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is a gentle and delightful work which nevertheless poses some existential questions.
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