Afterschool by Antonio Campos

When your whole reality is based on short internet clips, how can you deal with extreme emotions when they appear in the real world ?

Questions of reality and emotional detachment are closely tied together in Antonio Campos’ Afterschool, which could almost be understood as a film within a film. It is framed in such a way that the gaze of the spectator is not often confronted with that of a character, but of a computer monitor. The digital screen contains scenes of suffering and humiliation, but also of sweetness and love, thus showing something that the real world lacks – emotional detachment.

During its first half, the film’s syntax is innovative and experimental. The composition of frames with non-centred characters and static shots of fragments of human bodies (e.g. only a pair of legs) is often quite provocative. However Campos himself doesn’t believe that the spectator is capable of solving the mystery he has presented. Towards the end, Afterschool sinks into banality, self-efficiency and self-explanations, while its perplexing way of storytelling severely tests the audience’s patience.

Mario Kozina