HEREAFTER (Clint Eastwood)

-

HEREAFTER is a honest, life- affirming and introspective look into the human side of the afterlife mystery. Most films would render their own interpretations of what comes after death; HEREAFTER instead presents vague details open for anybody's interpretation. Peter Morgan's script is so heartbreakingly human it moves you. It also helps that under Clint Eastwood's capable hands and keen eye for detail, HEREAFTER makes you relate to its inspiring characters.

At the heart of the film is George Lonegan (Matt Damon), a man blessed with the gift to communicate with the dead. George regards his gift as a curse, as he believes it hinders him from having a normal life. When we are given a glimmer of hope about George's life with the arrival of Melanie (Bryce Dallas Howard), a woman George meets at a cooking class, we believe that there may be life after all in living amongst the dead. Maintaining a relationship with someone who can speak with the dead is complicated; it changes things because too much information on the part of the other person destroys the mystery, hence the loss of innocence. It's like what they say: can you handle the truth?

Then there's Marie Lelay (Cecile de France), who has a near death experience during a tsunami incident in Thailand. Marie is troubled with the images she saw during the moments when she is on the "other side", and is in search of meaning.

In London, a kid named Marcus (Frankie McLaren) loses his twin brother Jason (George McLaren) in an accident. Marcus is too young to understand death and its implications, so he seeks knowledge. His journey is   deeply affecting, and like any other child undergoing the harsh reality of life, the exodus is painful for the viewer. Like what happened in THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS, Marcus' sojourn to discovery and eventually the loss of innocence are pure and poignant by-products of a child pitted in a grown-up world.

Their stories intertwine, and in a universal tone, HEREAFTER tells us that the mystery of death should remain a mystery, otherwise life would be meaningless. And yet, it does help to get some answers to quench our thirst for knowledge. But at what point do we really achieve closure?

Throughout the film, common issues surrounding the afterlife are grazed upon: fake mystics, obsession, quest for meaning, your whole life flashing before your eyes, etc. etc. Above all else, the film underscores that hope will always be there, and we must always have a place for it in our hearts. People come and go, so we must make the moments in our life count.

Important note here is the San Francisco area, where Matt Damon's character resides. Eastwood knows the area too well that his storytelling is majestic. The London and France location shoots are also breathtaking. 

RATING: 5/5 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ANINO SA LIKOD NG BUWAN (Jun Lana, 2015)

-
Image
* English title "Shadow behind the Moon" The best term to describe Jun Lana's latest film would be a cinematic charade- a game of identities, of motives, of suppressed passions, and of uncertainty. Or the film equivalent of a Russian doll, if you will. "Anino sa Likod ng Buwan" only has three characters- husband and wife Nando (Anthony Falcon) and Emma (LJ Reyes) and military man Joel (Luis Alandy). What started as a seemingly routine banter among friends gradually and intensely escalated into an examination of society, where the definition of immorality is blurred during a time of insurgency.  And in fact, the film does discuss the subject of immorality from various paradigms. When does adultery become acceptable, and to whom? Is sexual liberation more heinous than murder? Why is immorality always a double standard? The film plays out the ideas in endless games. Or are they really games at all? Lana could have stopped there, but he didn...
Read more

TUHOG (Jeffrey Jeturian)

-
Image
Film within a film-structured movies are always interesting watch. Not only do they provide a much-needed deconstruction of form and content of cinema itself, but also that much-needed emotional punch a cinephile would surely love.  Like in BAD EDUCATION (Almodovar, 2004), we witness the characters tell the back story via montage, as if we are part of the cast of characters watching an actual movie. The form was successful in evoking pain and regret, and also of empathy. In TUHOG, Jeffrey Jeturian and screenwriter Bing Lao tackles sensational media in the Philippines, especially in cinema. The film opens as a film producer hears a pitch for a possible movie- a story of a grandfather who rapes his own granddaughter.  The director of the film soon after visits the victim of the crime, Floring (Ina Raymundo). Coercing both she and her mother, Perla (Irma Adlawan) to sell them the movie rights to their story, we witness as exploitation cinema unfolds. To think of it, capitaliz...
Read more

BIGKIS (Neal Tan, 2014)

-
Image
As an advocacy film, BIGKIS (INTERTWINED) gets its message across. The state of maternal healthcare in the Philippines is downright depressing, with mothers seated on the floor of public hospitals due to shortage of beds, medical equipment and hospital staff. The baby better be gaping through the birth canal before the mother receives serious medical attention.  Such social issue has been featured countless times in local documentaries and even in a feature film (2011's BAHAY BATA), but BIGKIS pushes the envelope further by bridging a connection between mother and child by means of breastfeeding, and in doing so, promoting breastfeeding in the process.  As a drama, the film tends to squeeze too much tragedy from the downtrodden lives of its characters that a lot of the dialogue feels staged for us to feel sorry for their countless miseries. Mariel (LJ Reyes), a teenage mother deals with an unwanted pregnancy and worse, the abandonment of her baby's father (Pancho ...
Read more