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France · 2022
2h 10m
Director Bertrand Mandico
Starring Paula Luna, Elina Löwensohn, Vimala Pons, Agata Buzek
Genre Fantasy, Science Fiction, Western
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On a wild and untamed female-inhabited planet called After Blue, a lonely teenager named Roxy unknowingly releases a dangerous assassin from her prison, who begins a killing spree. Roxy and her mother, Zora, are held accountable for the assassin's crimes. Their punishment? Track o track down the murderer and kill her.
To its credit, After Blue is very easy on the eyes, reminiscent of the kitschy, saturated pulp mags Mandico is clearly borrowing from. But its illusory schtick is better suited for a short film, rather than being taffy-pulled into a feature with so many sugary gaps in logic and feeling. You’re better off taking an edible and pressing play on Hounds of Love.
The New York Times by Elisabeth Vincentelli
It’s unclear what Mandico is trying to say, if anything, and the film overstays its welcome — even the wildest visuals lose their power to stun after a while — but “After Blue” certainly is sui generis.
To enjoy After Blue, one should be open to an experience that overtakes the senses. Despite the long runtime, it offers a wholly unique experience.
For all its provocations, After Blue (Dirty Paradise) is rote and tedious. The body horror and gross-outs get repetitive, and none of it ever means much of anything.
Austin Chronicle by Josh Kupecki
A sapphic blending of Westerns and mythology (Boorman via Cocteau?) shot through a filter of Seventies sci-fi paperback covers, After Blue is the second proper feature from French experimental filmmaker Bertrand Mandico – although his output of shorts is abundant – following 2017’s The Wild Boys.
A kaleidoscopic fantasy warped through the lens of a 1970s sci-fi Western, After Blue is a synthetic siren song for the freaks of the future and the past.
After Blue advertises itself as a sci-fi/fantasy epic, and although it’s a long and complicated story with many elaborate settings, it ends up feeling small and inconsequential by the end.
Though its weak bounty-hunter plot makes almost no sense, After Blue satisfies that thirsty spot in our psyche too few films succeed in tickling, where dreams are born, hormones churn and logic simply doesn’t apply.
The pointlessness is the point, and there’s zero entertainment value in that, no matter how many critics throw up their hands and use “fever dream” as a reason to cop out, give it a thumb’s up, and move on.
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