The premise of this highly original and intriguing 1998 movie is that when you die you arrive at a literal half way house en route to the infinite. Here you are helped to choose one memory were you happiest, most fulfilled or most at one with yourself.
When you have made your choice this moment is recreated on film and you spend eternity replaying this single fragment of time.
The movie is a Canadian production with all Japanese cast and is directed by Hirokazu Koreeda. His concern for realism is such that the stories that made it into the film are the actual ones the actors told him as their favorite memories.
I watched this on DVD but this is a movie to see in the cinema – not because it has I-max Batmanesque visual set pieces but because its strength lies in slowly drawing you into the interplay between the helpers and the newly deceased. It transpires that the helpers are also dead and take on this role because they themselves were unable or unwilling to choose.
The matter of fact, unsentimental way in which death is treated together with the absence of any religious overtones make this a reflection on how these individuals lived rather than how they died.
Inevitably while watching you cannot help thinking what moment you would choose and forces you to reflect that if you cannot think of a defining moment, you’d better go out and get one quick.
