Aftermath/Genesis
by Nacho Cerdà
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DVD details
Actor: Ángel Tarris, Jordi Tarrida, Pep Tosar, Trae Houlihan, Xevi CollellmirDirector: Nacho Cerdà
Brand: Genesis
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 70 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-01-29
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Unearthed Films
DVD Reviews of Aftermath/Genesis
DVD Review: Fear of nihilism.
Summary: 3 Stars
Aftermath (Nacho Cerda, 1994)
Nacho Cerda's infamous short (half an hour) film Aftermath is a love-it-or-hate-it affair. Unlike most films of this stripe, it's not an easy split; you can't simply say that gorehounds and perverts will like it and everyone else won't. And that should clue you in that there's something beyond gore, necrophilia, and a really twisted (but damned funny) punchline going on under the surface here. This is where the split occurs; if you can grok what Cerda seems to be saying, and you've got a strong enough stomach to take it in the way Cerda dishes it out, you're probably going to like this. You may never watch it again, but you can appreciate it on some level.
Aftermath takes us behind the scenes at a medical examiner's office. I want to say here that it's not your normal medical examiner's office, but we don't know, do we? One way or the other, however, the guys who work here are just plain scary. In the first of the two extended sequences that make up this movie, there's nothing terribly amiss on the surface, but you can tell there's something wrong about the whole scene. No one speaks, the characters simply grunt to one another or to themselves. And yet there's a language here, one that we can eventually begin to puzzle out. And when we get to that point, our suspicions that our characters are not nice people really takes off. And then comes the second scene, which is the one that sends most people out into the streets holding placards and calling for Nacho Cerda's head on a platter.
I first saw the infamous second scene years ago, when a band I saw live used it as a filmic backdrop to their music. I was drunk at the time, and thus misremembered some things about it that kept me from seeing the whole thing until now. I remembered it being a great deal funnier (unintentionally) than it is (for those of you who've seen it, I recalled the ME actually holding the camera while he was, erm, having fun. You can see where the hilarity came into play). If you've got a really, really warped sense of humor, it is kind of amusing, in a "blackest of the black" sort of way; if you wondered why people called Very Bad Things a black comedy, because to you it seemed like slapstick, then you'll probably appreciate Cerda's nihilist form of humor here. The rest of you are watching it for the necrophilia. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything at all erotic about this. Quite the contrary-- and that's what Cerda's getting at, I believe.
Then comes the final scene. Maybe it wasn't necessary-- Cerda definitely used a bigger mallet than necessary to drive his point home here-- but when it comes right down to it, if you want to view Aftermath as a black comedy, the final scene is most certainly necessary.
So what is it that Cerda's trying to say with his "evil" (for lack of a better term) medical examiners and these poor abused corpses? I don't think, as some folks have offered, that Cerda's point is that when we're dead, we become nothing more than meat. I think it's more about the loss of control-- once a person is dead, those around that person have the ability to visit any sort of horror upon the body that they like, and aside from the ethical questions (which our characters have obviously ignored), there's really nothing that the dead can do to stop them. (This is, it seems to me, what Cerda is really trying to hammer home in the final scene-- the real depths of the lack of control.)
Given all this, I do think it's a thought-provoking little piece, though gorehounds and the perverse will certainly find enough packed into this half-hour to sate their more prurient tastes. While there is no conceivable way to posit that Aftermath is fun for the whole family, it is worth seeing if you've got the stomach for it. ***
Description of Aftermath/Genesis
Studio: Tla Releasing Release Date: 01/29/2008 Run time: 70 minutes Rating: NrBestsellers in DVD
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