A Tokyo cap driver, Morishima (Kentez Asaka) lost his wife Sayuri (Megumi), an accomplished pop singer, to suicide. It's his obsessive spying that pushed her to end her life. Afterglows is about him processing his guilt while driving around Tokyo, mostly at night shot in contrasty black and white with glowing soft lit Tokyo skyline. The film is beautiful to look at, even inappropriately so. Things take a turn when he picks up a passenger who looks exactly like Sayuri. His obsession, believing his wife is still not dead, starts again as he stalks the woman. Morishima is confronted with his wrongdoing by a sly journalist who befriends him at a small late night eatery.
First time director Taichi Kimura creates a dreamy landscape where you don't exactly know if it's afterlife/purgatory or the protagonist's imaginings. Don't matter - empty Tokyo at night has never been more beautiful.
