after.life

A schoolteacher awakens after a car crash on the slab of a mortician who informs her of her demise. He seems equipped with the ability to talk to the dead. But is she actually dead and does this mortician truly have such a gift? Or is she alive and simply held captive by a lunatic?
***½

 A little forewarning...nudity.

I was trying to come up with the proper description for After.Life and “morbidly clever” come to mind. I found the ending particularly morbidly clever as it pertains to Justin Long’s final predicament. The film spends a great deal of time questioning Liam Neeson’s mental state. Does he have the special gift/sense to talk with the dead as he performs his work on them in the back of his funeral parlor as he prepares them before they’re laid to rest. The film takes great strides to hint that it is possible Christina Ricci’s elementary teacher is in fact alive and that Neeson is a loon who talks to people that aren’t dead. On the same token, the film doesn’t necessarily outright say that Neeson might can't speak to the dead. The ending answers that but until the final scene, the film keeps us somewhat guessing. Liam is cast under a sinister light (good work, the way the director photographs him from angles that make him seem like a looming Grim Reaper; I think the main asset to this film is how it seems Liam symbolizes impending death; that lump in the throat as he goes about his business emulates, I felt, the inevitability and eventuality of death), and Long’s insistence that Ricci is not dead and in need of rescue, that seems to be the intentional suspense of After.Life. Neeson is about to take away Long’s life love, and Long will attempt to stop him from finishing his job. That urgency and fight to hold onto the one you love when it appears she will be lost from you I think gives this film a certain tension (no one wants to lose their love forever, and that denial that exists afterward is painfully presented).

Designed like a manipulative “save her in time before it’s too late” thriller, with Long becoming convinced overtime that Ricci is still alive and that Neeson could be holding her hostage with plans to embalm her if he doesn’t get to her, After.Life pulls our strings a bit. The film does seem to indicate Ricci might be dead just by the pallid color of her flesh. That and Ricci shows her arms seeming numb and losing feeling, her body starting to fail on her as her walking slumbers. So it is possible Neeson is not just some nutjob holding her against her will. The film also taunts us by having Ricci seemingly on the verge of escape only for Neeson to interfere before she can. He spends most of the time talking her out of believing she’s alive, convincing her that it is futile to continue in resisting what fate dealt her. We’re toyed with, methinks, throughout because we, as mortals, (most of us) aren’t particularly keen on sleeping with the fishes. Neeson’s employ is to prepare the dead for his/her final adieus from those they knew and loved. But in this film he not only prepares the dead for others, Neeson also readies those that have died (again, that is if he really does talk to the dead or just imagines he does…), even as they might not be so inclined to pass on to the hereafter just yet. There’s a moment where Neeson seems to disregard the “I’m not dead” coming from another victim on his slab who really looks good and dead, and I think it is just a sign that “That’s what they all say…” He had quite a bit of resistance from Ricci so he’ll cancel out another one giving him a hard time. A boy who hangs around the funeral home becomes an apprentice, from how the film seems to conclude, and might just have the same gift Neeson does…that or he knows Ricci was alive, as the film further goads us along into wondering if he might lend a support in her rescue.

I was fascinated by how Ricci is sexualized in the film. Naked a lot, I was quite stunned by just how much time she spends bare to us. She has these poses for the camera, too, like a subject for a painted canvas. She is certainly a figure worthy of the painted canvas. I would be remiss not to comment on her allure. The film is quite provocative in how it does feature Ricci, on the slab, or holding a lost facial expression, numb as her limbs, cold as her flesh. I think it was perhaps hard to get around not appealing to those who just want to spend time ogling Ricci while nude. There must have been a real comfort with the director, and the character/situation perhaps touched something in Ricci that would encourage her to bare her desirable body open to us. The authenticity of the story, maybe, felt important to her, because realistically her body would be freed of clothes if Neeson is getting her prepared for her funeral. There’s never any sort of indication, though, that Neeson is sexually drawn to her; he’s done this so many times, unhealthy, naughty thoughts don’t exist. She’s just another among many who died tragically and young. It all seems like business as usual. While Neeson might be cast under a sinister light, he does appear to carry this sad disposition, a quiet empathy, an air of sensitivity to Ricci’s plight, yet he has work that needs to be done and I think it is noticeable that he becomes annoyed. It is subtle and he seems for the most part to keep his annoyance under lock and key, but with Long barking up his tree, questioning whether or not Ricci is dead, it pokes the resolve a bit.

There’s something about how cinema makes morticians more than a bit creepy. They’re like gargoyles that set upon Notre Dame looming overhead. In fact there are camera placements with Neeson bearing down over Ricci, a calm voice, going about his routine, Ricci expected to just accept death and not cause any difficulties to his process…no muss, no fuss. She shares dialogue with him. I think of chess with Death and how conversation perhaps convinces away from the endgame. I also think of the Borg…resistance is futile.

After.Life isn't highly thought of. Upon release, it was rather unceremoniously ditched to the curb and left for dead. I think it has kind of been banished to the wastelands of dvd shelfdom, perhaps to catch the eye in passing. Maybe the box will peek from behind Abandon (2002); it might just be worth your consideration. It might surface occasionally in chat or in discussion about that movie that featured Ricci buck naked. I like it. A lot actually. And not just because Ricci is nude in it. I like the film's approach to telling its story about life and death. Neeson's sanity in question, Ricci's fate up in the air, and how Long getting involved, often a pitiable mess of emotional distress, leading to a climax that has more than its share of dark irony. I would say this might be that kind of thriller that, upon re-evaluation, could summon a bit more of a rep. Perhaps this is a cult movie in a few years. We'll see.