Whatever you may believe about reincarnation, near death experiences, or NDEs, are incredibly well documented. Clint Eastwood’s film The Hereafter covers some of this territory –

The hereafter, Casino Jack and vengeance
via Roger Ebert’s Journal by Roger Ebert

Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter considers the possibility of an afterlife with tenderness, beauty and a gentle tact. I was surprised how enthralling I found it. I don’t believe in woo-woo, but there’s no woo-woo anywhere to be seen.

It doesn’t even properly suppose an afterlife, but only the possibility of consciousness after apparent death. This is plausible. Many near-death survivors report the same memories, of the white light, the waiting figures and a feeling of peace.

The subject lends itself to sensationalizing and psychic baloney. Eastwood has made a film for sensitive, intelligent people who are naturally curious about what happens when the shutters close. He tells three primary stories. Their three central characters meet at the end, but please don’t leap to conclusions. This is not one of those package endings where all the threads come together in a Coincidence that makes everything clear. They meet in a perfectly explicable and possible way, they behave as we feel they might, and everything isn’t tied up neatly. Instead, possibilities are left open in this world, which is as it should be, because we must live the lives we know and not count on there being anything beyond the horizon…

For the complete article, click here to go to The Chicago Sun-Times.

 

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