After Life (1998)

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https://www.criterion.com/films/29081-after-life

If you could choose only one memory to hold on to for eternity, what would it be? That’s the question at the heart of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s revelatory international breakthrough, a bittersweet fantasia in which the recently deceased find themselves in a limbo realm where they must select a single cherished moment from their life to be recreated on film for them to take into the next world. After Life’s high-concept premise is grounded in Kore‑eda’s documentary-like approach to the material, which he shaped through interviews with hundreds of Japanese citizens. What emerges is a panoramic vision of the human experience—its ephemeral joys and lingering regrets—and a quietly profound meditation on memory, our interconnectedness, and the amberlike power of cinema to freeze time.

• New 2K restoration, approved by writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary featuring film scholar Linda Ehrlich
• New interviews with Kore-eda, stills photographer–cinematographer Masayoshi Sukita, and cinematographer Yutaka Yamazaki
• Deleted scenes
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen

New cover by Eric Skillman