Repurposing
or recycling footage either from a preexisting movie/show as a recap or another
motion picture film entirely is always going to raise one’s eyebrows in terms
of a picture’s validity. Whether it be
an egregious example such as the infamous Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (Turkish Star Wars) or sequels
sneakily reusing special effects shots or setups ala Michael Bay’s Transformers
sequels, movies that use someone else’s work almost
always garners frowns from devoted cinephiles.
Which makes the case of the British/Japanese post-apocalyptic In the Aftermath
a most unusual and yet frustratingly anticlimactic experience.
Prior to its
creation in 1988, much of the skin and bones for the film was provided by Mamuro
Oshii’s masterful animated film Angel’s Egg (reviewed here by Michelle Kisner).
From the eventual creator of Ghost in the Shell, it tells the story of a
nameless girl wandering a barren futuristic landscape keeping vigil over a mysterious
egg. On its own terms Angel’s Egg is a work of pure visual poetry, minimalist and haunting. Sadly, however, this brilliant work of
Japanese animation remains unavailable to westerners outside of bootlegging or
importing, making Arrow Video’s re-release of In the
Aftermath as close to an official
release of Angel’s Egg as we’ll
get stateside for some time.
Piggybacking
off Oshii’s film is this microbudget live action production involving a
post-apocalyptic Britain with few survivors in gasmasks roaming the nuclear
torn landscape. In an odd collision
between real world footage and Oshii’s film, sections of animation intrude onto
the live action footage before dissolving into an actor or object in the
animated section’s place. Outside of
some occasional whiteboard scribblings the film’s main character makes in a
makeshift hospital bedroom, frustratingly no explanation for the two movies
coalescing is given outside of a montage set to the protagonist strumming Carnavalito
Tango at the keyboard.
I’m
especially fond of post-apocalyptic films touching on nuclear holocaust as well
as stylish animation pushing artistic boundaries in terms of technique and
meaning. Ideally these two mediums being
hastily sandwiched together should make for an enlightening if not intriguing
experience. Tragically the sophomore
footage by (at-the-time) first time director Carl Colpaert doesn’t hold up when
compared to Oshii’s towering achievement.
It’s kind of embarrassing for the Japanese master’s work of cinematic
art to have some late-80s nuclear-holocaust cheapie leeching off it.
--Andrew Kotwicki