Arnold Pizzey (ArnoldPizzey)

Beautiful, Sad and Scary, was Kim Ji-woon's remit for this unique movie. It is all these things for sure, but it is much more than the sum of its (not inconsiderable) parts. There is moment, near the start of the movie where Jung-ah Yum, as the stepmother greets the sisters, she is all brittle bonhomie and clicking heels, and they react with open hatred and fear. You may think you know where this story is going, but believe me, you absolutely don?t. What follows, might just be, the most extraordinary cinematic experience of your life. This is a movie so beautiful, it hurts your eyes. It is sad, in a way you don?t expect and scary from a place you might not know existed. Please. Go out now. Find this movie and watch it. It really is that good.

The premise of this story is, that upon your death, you stay for one week at a nondescript establishment where sympathetic councillors help you to select ONE outstanding memory from your life. Whatever you chose, (if you decide to chose) will be made into a short film, and you will live within that life-defining memory for all eternity. Many of the afterlifers are non-actors and it is their memories that give an emotional weight to this beautifully realised piece; the elderly lady whose wartime memory of dancing for her brother in her new red dress is beautifully poignant,; the man who discovers that he has wasted his life by devotion to a job that he hates, and the teenager who cannot chose between a trip to Disneyland and the smell of her mother. Every once in a while, a movie come along that astonishes and delights, and it is for wonderful movies like this that I cheerfully wade through hundreds of hours of mediocre, derivative dross. This is a life-affirming and deeply humanistic meditation on what it means to live a good life. I Absolutely recommend this beautiful, uplifting movie.