Directed by Bertrand Mandico
France | 2022 | Fiction | 127 min | French w/ subtitles
Film Source: Altered Innocence
Sponsored by: Alliance Française of the Lake Champlain Region
After Blue (Dirty Paradise) aspires for instant cult status. On a post-Earth planet pocked with crystals and smeared with goop, a mother and daughter (Elina Löwensohn and Paula-Luna Breitenfelder) are on a mission to find and kill a criminal named Kate Bush (Agata Buzek). This future alternative world is devoid of men and machines, but hallmarks of earthly culture still linger, such as guns named after high-end fashion designers. The elaborate sets of alien foliage in Bertrand Mandico’s film have a handcrafted ‘80’s sensibility, as do the barrage of practical in-camera effects that swirl across the screen in a kaleidoscope of rear projections, colored filters, and superimpositions. With unhinged creativity seeping through every nook and cranny of the production, this adult fairy tale is a hallucinatory odyssey across strange lands, amidst strange folks and strange creatures. ~TW