«After My Death», a deep, dark drama

Fribourg International Film Festival - Loris S. Musumeci

A Korean student has disappeared. The police investigate. The mother is cold; she has unreasonable but legitimate hopes of finding her daughter. The father, for his part, has already given up hope. At school, the teachers, led by the principal, fear for the school's reputation. The students, for their part, deal with the shock by whispering little secrets, trying to find a scapegoat on whom to lay the blame. Eventually, the girl is found as a corpse. Swollen by the river into which the suicidal woman had thrown herself. The investigation continues; the interrogations intensify. A hidden lesbian love affair is at the root of the tragedy.

A Special Jury Prize for the art of the thriller

A Special Jury Prize at the Fribourg International Film Festival for a young South Korean director. This is Kim Ui-seok's first feature film. The film was developed at the Korean Academy of Film Arts. The school can be proud of having trained a filmmaker who already understands the codes of the thriller. Not only does he understand them, he goes beyond them, venturing into a tunnel of darkness with no way out.

In raw silence, several scenes isolate the characters. By night, a young girl on the road. By day, the mother in her car, vomiting her misery. In addition to being alone, the protagonists are often filmed from behind, at neck level. Their isolation thus takes on a more serious air. It's as if a fatal destiny is stalking them, and any outcome seems impossible.

Hair-raising acting and scenes

The acting enhances the ambient darkness of’After My Death. The mother's completely blank facial expression is frightening. She looks like a ghost, so much so that death seems to have taken her away with her daughter. The look on the classmates' faces is more lively. But they live in perpetual fear and suspicion. A certain malevolence between the female students can even be seen in their furrowed brows and downward-leaking eyes. Their lips are pursed. The unease is great.

Among the most horrifying scenes, in addition to those that must be kept quiet out of respect for the excellent construction of the plot, is that of the victim's funeral. Lasting a mere ten minutes on screen, the funeral is hair-raising. What horror! It's unbearable! According to tradition, the grandmother screams and cries. An actress hired for the occasion shouts out what the deceased is saying from the beyond: «Forgive me!» What's more, the sound of the drum invades the celebration room, giving it a more ominous effect.

A dark film, too dark

As a whole, the film is chilling; so chilling that even when the mother suggests she's recovering from the event, she sinks back into the harshest of depressions, obsessed by a suicide she can't admit. Her mourning is blocked. Her mind remains in the unhealthy illusion that her daughter is still alive. Disguising herself with sweet words for the collateral victims of the death, such as «I'd be comforted to see her get better», she harasses everyone around her, clumsily imposing the memory of her daughter.

Unlike the film's emblematic tunnel, there is no such thing as the palest of lights in the film. It could have at least outlined the darkness. But here, nothing. Everything is black, too black. After My Death makes you dizzy; it makes your whole body tense up. Fingernails cling to the cinema seat. Kim Ui-seok sweeps away any possibility of hope. This is undoubtedly the abuse of an overly successful thriller. In this sense, the story is no longer tragic: even a transcendence of destiny gives in to the plot. Drama, nothing but drama. Deep black.

«We'll be fired if she doesn't wake up.»