By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 1 cat
Director: John Huddles
Starring: Bonnie Wright | Daryl Sabara | Freddie Stroma | James D'Arcy | Rhys Wakefield | Sophia Lowe
Country: indonesia, united_states
Year: 2014
Running time: 107
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1928340/combined
Kyle says: “A class of philosophy students in a privileged high school in Djakarta on the final day of class is challenged by the teacher to consider issues confronting them on different doomsday scenarios, in which only ten of the twenty students (plus or minus their teacher) may enter the specially planned facility to survive a nuclear holocaust. The facility is fitted with all necessities for a year of survival, during which they must work together and plan how to repopulate the ravaged world outside. Considerable thought is expended on pairing off for sexual intercourse, which one student points out is no longer for fun. We see the three different scenarios played out in different geographical surroundings, each time with narration when explanation is required, after which we return to the classroom for their analysis of the way things worked out, since we already know they will certainly not proceed according to the plan.
“The noxiousness of this movie is so pervasive as to beggar description, from sexual politics worthy of the kindergarten playground, to camera shots holding much too long on actors who register nothing more compelling than blankness. Perhaps its true destination is a classroom devoted to the analysis of terrible movies, in which a blackboard can accommodate lists of idiocy in many categories, such as science, sociology, history, education, geopolitics, gender studies, the Holocaust and eugenics: the list would be lengthy. The teacher, arrogantly portrayed by the hapless James D’Arcy, personifies the lunatic inadequacies of an imaginary educational system, and offers the possible choice of his suicide at the movie’s conclusion, suggesting the irritating possibility that his students — and we the unfortunate viewers — could have avoided the entire pointless exercise.
“There is one bit of trivia worth mentioning, since virtually nothing else is. Except for a screening at Fantasy Filmfest in Germany, AFTER THE DARK opened on the same day — October 10, 2013 — in Russia and Ukraine. Perhaps that moment of geopolitical frisson suggests another list for the classroom blackboard. 1 cat
“Saturday, September 6, 2014, on Netflix, New York”