Review of After the Dark (2013) by Jordon J — 20 Mar 2014

While I was watching this movie, I felt like I was reading a book or I was one of the students having class with them. (That's not a compliment) The story was about a lecturer and students taking philosophic experiments. Their jobs, identity, background in the experiments were showcased by dialogue only, no acting was added. It's just like a role play but no acting is required. They imagined they were in the condition of a disaster and they needed to vote 11 people who deserved to survive in order to extend the live of human. At the first act, they only listened and then they were dead. Second, they learned and then they were dead. Third, they fought and then they survived, not only that 11 people, it's all of them survived. It highlighted the equality, the ethic, the value of our live. It is about how we are going to make a choice. We could choose to sit there and listen to other without any judge. Alternatively, we could choose to stand up and judge what we see, listen, touch, smell, and then fight for what we stand for.

As a lecture, I appreciate this kind of experiment coz it can help me to further develop knowledge in that aspect. But as a movie, I would take it as an educational movie rather than a drama movie. It was not telling a story. I think it was just showing me the Philosophy lesson straightforwardly. It may be the style of the director but I do not admire. Despite the fact that the movie showed something apart from the experiment such as the relationship between the students and the lecturer, it was lightly mentioned. Also, the ending is not convincing enough and it sort of made the movie worse.