Hereafter ____________________________________________________________________

Hereafter
2010 Clint Eastwood directs
Matt Damon, Cecile de France, Bryce Dallas Howard

Motion pictures that attempt to deal with the afterlife on a more formal basis often fail.  Purely spiritual themes just simply do not play well in cinema because they are either preachy and explanatory, cerebral one would say, or they are too unbelievably unearthly and lose themselves in the fiction.  All resemblance to reality is lost.

The one exemption might be The Passion, the more recent telling of Mel Gibson’s highly Catholic and liturgically exacting version of the last hours of the Christ.  That was undoubtably a near perfect film and not likely to be equaled for the subject matter.  All other Christs before his failed in one way or another.

But what of the Hereafter?  There couldn’t be a better director today in Hollywood than Clint Eastwood.  He has come of age with his abilities.  The acting was superbly wrought under his hand, and the cinematography was incredible.  But as much as the team pulled off a great story, it was not a story about the afterlife.  Just as Wings of Desire by Wenders in the 80s was not about angels, so Hereafter manages to really be about the choice of living, and how living in the here and now is very important.

What does the hereafter look like in Clint’s film?  Not much but a shadowy and effervescent white-ish void wherein souls reside in some sort of floating condition, mirky, and also paced apart from one another.  One gets a sense of loneliness there, almost, like drowning in a sea of people all around.

But the theme could not really be more clear here.  Where the theology fails to be at all comprehensible, the humanism does shine through, and a self-interested, self-centered reality blooms.  In fact, regarding the search for the afterlife, there is a sense here that it is not even a desirable endeavor, but rather something not to be sought after, and holding forth potentially damaging information that one should likely shy away from.

The romance in the film is the bulk of the story, and is very well done.  The two main protagonists in the story, and how they meet in the end, is the story.  It is the story of the one seeking, and the one seeking to shed himself of being sought, of jaded experience meeting a virginal heart naively believing.

There could be some minus points in that there are conciliatory body shots of Cecile de France, wonderfully placed no doubt, but not really necessary.  She completely dominates any scene that she is in anyway, so partial nudity is not necessary, although I cannot blame Clint for taking advantage of that with such a completely compelling woman on board.  Something about the camera, men, and beautiful women...hmm.  Those kind of shots are often great at producing a kind of vulnerability in a character that may be a bit cold to us in a business suit, so you could call it character development.  On the other hand, Cecile in a suit…..that's still warm.

There is little I can fault this picture with cinematically, but as far as subsequent meaning, it is vacuous.  If you like Clint Eastwood’s work, as I do, then this is one to be seen for the sake of following a good film maker, and the various story lines in its multi-narrative is compelling and very well done .  But if it’s spiritual answers or a seeking after truth you’re looking for, you’ll find more under a rock.

Agitatus