Once again I let myself to be fooled by critics and I became the subject of the two-hour-long bore called `After Life.' Along with `Eyes Wide Shut', `After Life' illustrates the simple wisdom that an interesting idea alone is not a guarantee of a good film. By some reason, unknown to me, if something is slightly different from the Hollywood gloss and schmaltz, it is always proclaimed brilliant and refreshing. `After Life ` is about a group of recently deceased people who are required to choose the fondest reminiscences of their lives. I understand, that in most cases people would choose little things that they hold dear but that may be of no interest to anyone else. Still, a good half of the film is devoted to extremely boring conversations shot in documentary style. I also understand that this is a fantasy but even a fantasy or a dream has its internal logic. If this place is not real and set in afterlife so why does it look like an old school or hospital building? Don't they have enough funds to repaint it? Why these afterlife social workers' try to re-stage people's memories on what looks like a low-budget film set if they could easily obtain videotapes of a person's whole life? (That is what they actually do in the case of one man who can't decide which memories to choose.) Where do those actors', used in the filming of people's memories, come from and where do they go afterwards? If all the people in the film are dead why do they need to drink tea, to sleep or to read? The film leaves a discerning viewer wondering about all this but it fails to give any answers.
Review of After Life
