Forget Arrakis (so last year), or Tatooine (très gauche), and don’t even mention Solaris (ugh, way too complicated); the cognoscenti know the fictional planet this season is After Blue. Fleeing a dying Earth has never been easier! Come for the sandy beaches, gorgeous sunsets, and unique wildlife, stay for the anti-technology agrarian lifestyle and arbitrary codes of justice. One important caveat, though: The atmosphere produces unrestricted body hair growth, and in men, unfortunately, these hairs grow inward, causing death. So, “ovarian bearers” only, please, aka no boys allowed.
A sapphic blending of Westerns and mythology (Boorman via Cocteau?) shot through a filter of Seventies sci-fi paperback covers, After Blue is the second proper feature from French experimental filmmaker Bertrand Mandico – although his output of shorts is abundant – following 2017’s The Wild Boys. Both exhibit what is clearly emerging as his recipe for cinema: loosing a handful of female actors into an Edenlike environment (this film is suitably alternately titled Dirty Paradise) to play out their dramas while the viewer is seduced by an endless succession of aural, visual, and tactile reveries. I’m certain no other contemporary filmmaker has pushed the inherent eroticism of nature to its most grotesque conclusions as Mandico likes to do, and he has an extraordinary knack for inducing ephemeral states of synesthesia.
Still unsure if a trip to After Blue is right for you? Well, the plot centers on Roxy (Luna), a restless teenager living in a small beachside village with her hairdresser mom, Zora (longtime Mandico collaborator and Hal Hartley royalty Löwensohn). One day, Roxy frees a woman buried to her neck in the sand. The woman, Kate Bush (Buzek), grants Roxy three wishes before going on a killing spree and fleeing the area. The village elders task Roxy and Zora to track down Kate Bush to her mountain lair for some frontier justice. Armed with a Gucci rifle (weapons are designated by iconic fashion houses), the pair sets off on their quest, Roxy assailed by visions not only of Kate Bush but of her victims, who taunt her relentlessly from the land of the dead. As they lie in wait in Kate Bush’s cave(!), they pal around with Veronika Sternberg (Pons), a local artist sporting the latest in designer witch couture. Sternberg owns a male android named Olgar-2 (Erpelding) with genitalia that is a bundle of tentacles, and whose nipples expel small ball bearings when he’s aroused. Also, at one point Zora and Veronika take a sensuous bath together in what appears to be the head of a giant creature they just killed. Make no mistake, these folks are h-o-r-n-y, and the world of After Blue is more than willing to accommodate them. But will After Blue accommodate you? Well, you’ve made it this far, haven’t you?
This article appears in June 3 • 2022.