after life response

In class last week we viewed "After Life," a film that deals with the idea of life after death. I found this portrayal of after life to be intriguing. Unlike other movies I've seen that are about similar topics this one was able to deal with this idea without being all about pathos or religion or something. It really reminded me of Waking Life, another movie that deals with sort of similar themes. It's not the easiest kind of film to get into, but once you do you sort of forget that there isn't much action.

Watching a movie like "After Life," you find yourself trying to catch onto someone else's conversation. It's like standing on a train platform and trying to hear what someone else is saying without them knowing that you're eavesdropping. There is a sense almost that you're not supposed to be hearing this, and that quality is what I liked most about this film. My favorite part was when they were all sitting in the movie theater about to view the recreated memories and you know that once they do they'll be gone, but there is something really beautiful about it anyway.

I tried to think about what my memory would be if I were to die with only the memories that I'd had so far. There was one day over winter break, the day before New Year's Eve, when my brother and I got into the car and started driving. We were headed, vaguely, to Atlantic City, a place where we'd spent childhood summers with our South Jersey Italian-immigrant family and one that holds a lot of sentimental and vernacular value to us. We left our house by DC around noon and drove, switching drivers once in between. We stopped in Cherry Hill, where my family had lived before I was born, had pizza at a restaurant that my father used to eat lunch at every day (seriously), and then got back on the highway. We stopped at the cemetery to put flowers by my grandparent's graves. Then we went to Atlantic City--it was late by the time we got there--and had dinner at a mall that my grandmother had taken us to when we were kids. My brother won back the traveling cost at a casino and we got back in the car to head home around nine. What's really significant about all of this is that I drove the whole way home while my brother slept in the passenger seat. It's never like this. I am younger and so, by default, the one being taken care of. This time it was not like that. I remember most vividly the way it felt to emerge from the Baltimore Harbor tunnel, music on, Jeremy asleep, and seeing all of the times we'd made this trip flash before my eyes. And to really feel like I'd gotten somewhere. To really feel like I was headed in one certain direction. I touched my palm to the cold window and smiled as the highway signs pointed me in a direction that was decidedly home.