If cinema is a dream like state than Bertrand Mandico's latest film After Blue (Dirty Paradise) is pure uncut cinema.
Bertrand created the Incoherence Manifesto in 2012 with fellow filmmaker Katrin Olafsdotir. Bertrand states, "To be incoherent means to have faith in cinema, it means to have a romantic approach, unformatted, free, disturbed and dreamlike, cinegenic, an epic narration."
A voice says "You are no longer on your planet. You are in space." Hues of red and blue wash over us. "The Earth was sick so we had to look elsewhere." Rules were set once After Blue was discovered. Rules to avoid the same errors of Earth. No machines, no wavelengths, no chemistry. Living in micro-communities, based on nationality. Laws were set to cut the bad weeds. When evil appears, it's roots are cut. There are no men on After Blue. Once the planet was colonized, they all died early on. The hair of the men grew inside because of the atmosphere. The population of After Blue continues when women are inseminated with good Earth sperm.
We meet a woman by the name of Roxy (Paula Luna). The village girls have named her Toxic. On a beach Roxy and three other women run around. They find a head submerged in the sandy beach. They examine it and refer to it as an octo-whore. Soon the three women get tired of this find and strip naked and run out to the water to swim. The head begins to plead for Roxy to unearth it. "If you help me. I will grant you hidden desires. Three desires." The apple as a genie. Roxy frees the woman. Paradise might have been found but paradise still requires guns. As it is, the newly freed woman takes one of the guns stuck in the sand and shoots the three women who are still swimming. Setting off an epic narration of events.
The woman Roxy has freed reveals that her name is Kate Bush. She is recognizable because she is tall, has a hairy arm, a tattoo and an eye between her legs. Kate has already granted Roxy her first wish by eliminating her friends.
The village arrives at Roxy's mother's Zona (Elina Löwensohn) salon to demand Roxy and her go out and find and kill Kate Bush. To further reinforce this demand the Gucci rifle they are handed to accomplish this has a blue glowing inscription YOU WILL KILL KATE BUSH.
Slightly off topic but interesting, director Bertrand Mandico and Elina Löwensohn have began a project entitled "20+1 Projections" The project involves the pair making twenty-one short films in twenty-one years. The themes of aging and desire will run throughout these films.
When the current Pandemic began to take hold in March and April of 2020 I was personally drawn to post-apocalyptic cinema. Not the drab color palette Mad Max kind of cinema though, the Italians making films in 1970s New York City kind of cinema. The Enzo G. Castellari kind of cinema. The explosion of color and ridiculous leather vest as armor cinema. 1990 Bronx Warriors, The New Barbarians. There is something comforting that during the end times people have great hair and rock regalia that is more fashion esthetic than pure defense. As the pandemic continues, it also comforts me the people crafting films right now, in the Almost End of Blue, are also exploring colorful post-apocalyptic landscapes.
After Blue is the direct descendant of Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo. After Blue is the child of David Pelham's 1970s sci-fi, paperback covers. It is also to say Bertrand Mandico's film is midnight madness. The cinematography of Pascale Granel is exquisite as is the score by Pierre Desprats.
Clearly with a film of this ambition and weirdness, you are either going to be on board with this trip or you will not be.
On a final note, surprisingly or perhaps not, the world of After Blue looks eerily similar to wandering a cattle ranch in South Texas after eating things that sprout up from the Earth.
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