Concluding the season, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s gorgeous, humane film is our final representation of what may await in the great beyond. It puts an idiosyncratic spin on the relationship between death and memory explored in other, more emotionally turbulent films in this selection, and will leave audiences with a depiction of the inevitable that is serene and comforting. 

At a way-station between life and what lies after, a liminal space similar to that of Kati Kati, the recently deceased are housed and given a week to select their happiest memory. A group of workers at the venue conduct in-depth interviews, helping them to decide on this, after which they assist them in restaging the moment on homemade sets, and film them. This will be the sole memory they bring forward with them into eternity. Their current intake includes a man with whom one of the counselors has a link and another who refuses to choose a memory. 

In focusing on those who have already gone on ahead without reference to those who have been left behind, Kore-eda’s film mirrors the experience of loss and the reshaping of memory that accompanies grief in the living. The memories presented are subjective and shaped by the revisions and emotions of the clients, whether deliberate or not. It suggests that much can be discarded in order to focus on what is worth cherishing, and that it is this that gives our deaths as well as our lives their value and meaning.

Notes by Kevin Coyne.

Screening as part of our season This Mortal Coil.