I'm not sure how to feel about this film, and I heard the DVD is edited quite a bit.
But the last scene it seems to me like Shiori is practicing for the next one to come in. Is this all it was?
I also feel bad for her, because she had a friend and he left to be with his memory. But then again, she'll make friends in the sort of purgatory zone.
I'm just a bit unsettled with how it ended.
Shiori was rehearsing, because up to that point she had only been a trainee councellor. This was her first day with her name on the door, rather than as an assistant to someone else.
shareShiori is indeed practicing for her next client (for want of another word) to come in, as she is now a senior member of staff now that Takashi has left.
The tragedy of the end is that Shiori will never make a friend like Takashi again.
As I understand it during her week in purgatory she fell in love with him, although her counsellor, and would not choose to a memory and pass into nothingness when she could remain there with him.
Ironically, it is he, with her help, who leaves her, seemingly alone in the after life. While she could, in theory, now pick a memory from her life (or like Takashi her after life), she will not, and stays in purgatory where everything reminds her of him (it is also possibly that she could not pick a memory from the after life, as Takashi was told he was an exception).
Ironically she has grown up, finally, after her death, just as Takashi seemed a young man wisened by old age.
She accepts her mistakes, takes a deep breathe and readies herself for the next lot.
in the movie she says something like: "i'm tired of everyone forget me" when Takashi(?) said that he was leaving and picking his memory with Kyoto(?)
No, he picked the memory of sitting on the park bench in the afterlife. It seemed to suggest that he picked the memory of having his memory filmed, since his film included a shot of everyone filming him. The boss says: "In your case we will make an exception." and at first I thought that he meant screening on a Sunday, but obviously he meant picking a memory of afterlife. This movie is absolutely brilliant by the way.
shareTakashi explains that the memory he has chosen is the realisation which he came to (in the afterlife) that his life had had an effect on someone.
What ends up hurting Shiori is that he did not realise the effect his presense in the afterlife had on others, but most importantly her.
Perhaps Takashi is selfish for not realising this, but Shiori is certainly selfish for not wanting him to go. She will live on in the afterlife with all of her memories of him, while he has forgotten all but the feeling of well-being achieved from having been loved by another in his lifetime.
My thought on this was that in a way he was remembering also Shiori, but maybe he didn't want to tell her or she didn't understand. In other words, he was making a "memory" of her, of all the people there, and of his realization that we had an effect on her life like on his fiance's life.
Yes. He says that his chosen memory is of him sitting alone on a bench, and so that's what they film. But when the show the clip later we see it from his perspective, and we see that he's not remembering sitting alone on the bench; he's remembering what he was looking at... i.e. his friends as they filmed him on the bench. So presumably he won't forget Shiori after all.
share[deleted]
The DVD is not cut. It's not great quality, but it's exactly the same footage as was shown in theaters.
I imagine the process she's going through is quite similar to losing a friend you admired during life. Trying to move on, busying herself with work, trying not to let it get too quiet. Besides, she just got promoted -- I imagine she's quite nervous having to do this work by herself. Filmmaking isn't easy.
Been awhile since anyone has had a fresh perspective on here?! hmmm.
Well I just watched it, and what I take from it was this.
" The shape never changes, but the shape changes depending on the angle of the light "
A quote we all might remember and take to heart, which Shiori was graceful to receive.
In my own little way, I saw this, and take from it what you may.
I love this metaphor. I think in Koreeda's own way that was his message to the characters in the movie. When Takashi films his last memory before departing. He films both lights. He films his moment of clarity of his most valued memory reenacted, aswell as the people in the afterlife who he loved as well. So, that when he leaves, he wont forget the beauty of any of them nor the moment, and thus he can leave in peace.
What you wrote is so beautiful.
Thanks for your post.
Really.