December
29, 2016
After the Life: Trilogy 3 – France, 2002
It is
not a novel sentiment, but it bears repeating - Drug addiction is hell. And perhaps nowhere has this message been presented
more consistently than in the movie theaters, in films from as far back as 1916’s
The Devil’s Needle to more recent
films such as 2000’s Requiem for a Dream.
Writer-Director Lucas Belvaux’s After the
Life, however, does something that most of these similarly-themed films do
not – it allows viewers to see the corruptive nature of drug addiction on not
just addicts but also the people most devoted to them.
After the Life begins with an eerie shot of a
man named Pascal Manise (Gilbert Melki) descending down a mountain on one of
those lifts usually reserved for ski slopes or remote locations. With eyes that
barely move and a silence that betrays a deep-seated pain, he is clearly a man
in deep contemplation. Soon we learn that Pascal is a police inspector, and
almost as quickly, we watch as he goes into the back of a restaurant and is
handed the kind of bag that could only contain something illegal.
Once
home, Pascal greets his wife, Agnes (Dominique Blanc), and for a split second
you would be forgiven for thinking theirs to be a rather normal marriage. There
are smiles between them, seemingly genuine looks of care, and banter than
matches the kind usually uttered between couples during good times. They even
go so far as to refer to each other as ‘Sherlock” and “Mrs. Holmes.” It is, of
course, an illusion. Soon we are presented with a camera shot of a silver tray
with used needles on top of it and Agnes’s joyfully peaceful expression as she
drifts off to a drug-inspired sleep. There is no sign of romance.
With
such a set up, After the Life has all
the makings of a powerful drama – there’s the wife, an addict whose habit has
caused her husband to become the kind of cop he likely swore he would not
become, and her enabler husband, faithfully caring for his wife, all the while
knowing what he has become in the process. Theirs is a relationship of both
love and hate. She hates him when he does not have the drugs she relies on; he
hates her for what he has to do to keep her happy.
In most
films, a character like Agnes would be a sick or terminally-ill patient,
someone with whom audiences could empathize and rue the limited avenues
available to someone living with so much pain. In such a scenario, drug use
would be acceptable. Here, however, nothing excuses Agnes’s use, and the depths
to which she goes to get her daily fix strike us not as something we should
empathize with and accept, but as something horrible that must be put a stop to.
This is especially true after Pascal is blackmailed by one of the dealers he
has been getting morphine from. His blackmailer’s “request” is simple: Find a criminal and shoot him before he has
a chance to talk; only then will his wife get what she needs.
I would
like to be able to describe After the Life
as a taut drama from start to finish with moments of chilling suspense. I
really would. And for much of the first half, I was confident that I would be
able to. However, as the film progresses, it gets bogged down in convoluted
storylines that are unconvincingly connected by the end the film. There’s a
woman who wants Pascal to investigate her husband, and one of Agnes’s
co-workers who may or may not have information about a terrorist who’s on the
loose. The former felt like a distraction, and the latter seemed rushed and
undeveloped. Even more egregious is the insertion of said terrorist into
Agnes’s storyline, for while I understand why his presence was necessary for
Agnes’s development, it still felt incredibly forced, like one of those
coincidences that sounds better in a screenwriter’s head than it looks on
screen.
Still,
the film never completely loses its way, and much of the credit for this
belongs to Blanc and Melki, both of whom give performances that have the
potential to shock and move audiences. I also appreciated the way the first
half of the film builds up to its big reveals instead of hitting audiences over
the head with them early on. This approach makes Agnes’s levels of desperation
all the more involving. Melki matches her intensity with cold aloofness, When
Pascal does finally break down emotionally and desperately seek some form of physical
confirmation of the pain he is in, he does so when his wife cannot respond to him.
In the scene, Melki’s reactions are truly heartbreaking.
I have
often wondered if a movie can truly be recommended for the performances of one
or more of its actors. After all, what does it say about a film if the reason
to see it is a performance and not a story? However, in After the Life, the performances are what stand out most of all.
This does not mean that the story the film tells is an awful one, but when the
film was over, I kept replaying particular moments of impressive acting in my
head, while the plot faded and became a bit of a blur. Take that as the grain
of salt that it is. (on DVD)
3 stars
*After the Life is in French with English
subtitles.
*After the Life is the third film is a trilogy. No, I have not seen the first two films. In my defense, the descriptions on both the front and back of the DVD were entirely in Chinese.
*After the Life is the third film is a trilogy. No, I have not seen the first two films. In my defense, the descriptions on both the front and back of the DVD were entirely in Chinese.
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