Here After

This middle length experimental film is a mixture of fiction and dance, however with a stronger emphasis on the fictional element than in any of Vandekeybus’ former films. While in Blush (2005 – a film based on the eponymous dance performance) the choreography supported the storyline, the narrative in Here After is much more prominent. A story in which body and movement carry the actors’ emotions. The trashy but beautiful Super8-images, showing us an isolated community (and which were part of the performance Puur), have been edited by Dieter Diependaele with Super 16-images filmed at a later stage in natural settings and a film studio, resulting in a passionate fiction film. On these new images the performers dance to the cutting sounds by Italian composer Fausto Romitelli and the lyric music by David Eugene Edwards (Woven Hand) – images that will evoke intense emotional reactions from the viewer. In the wake of the performance Puur, which was received successfully during the Festival d’Avignon 2005, Here After will be a passionate cinematographic experience showing Wim Vandekeybus’ talent as a filmmaker.

Through flashbacks, Here After tells the story of an isolated community in which a power-mad tyrant commands an infanticide. In the danced scenes we see how the characters relive their memories in the here-after; as if their emotions and traumas were captured in the memory of their bodies. The film shows terror and its destroying effect on a community and questions existential themes such as life/death, culpability/penance, identity/memory, regret/negation and power/freedom.