After Blue
Directed by Bertrand Mandico
130min, French/ENGLISH

TW/CW: A dog dies in this one (I think?!), rampant full frontal and rear female nudity, masturbation, sexual content, rampant gun violence, bloodshed, on screen executions, restraint and chain bondage, kidnapping and torture, “gender plague” death of biological males, alcohol, drug use, gross out body horror, oral sex, slimy oozing things, eating very gross things, death by hanging, dead bodies, mutated and deformed animals, penises and phallic symbolism everywhere, knives and blades

⚠️epilepsy warning for flashing lights and imagery, eye strain warning for harsh neon colored lights and blurry lens effects, high pitched noises or musical frequencies which may effect assisted listening devices⚠️

 (If you notice I’ve missed any content warnings, please let me know! I will gladly amend.)

 “Kate Bush! Come show me your cry-baby tits!”

 When I received the email on this screener offer I immediately stopped reading after the words “a queer French” — sounds gay, I’m in; say no more! I was well rewarded for my efforts.

 There’s pretty rainbow lights and everyone’s horny and making out, and it’s clearly because the lighting makes them look hot as heck. There’s plentiful and glittery nudity within the first 5 minutes, and psychedelic bloody gun violence in less than 10. There’s an army of women with light up hats. And it’s all set to a soundtrack with the kind of synthesized melody I imagine is what the very late 70’s/early 80’s may have sounded like at night.

 The chaos all centers around our protagonist, Roxy, who is absolutely crafted from IKEA furniture, as she travels with her mom looking for Kate Bush, the sexy assassin Roxy freed from a prison of sand (think burying your little brother in a hole on the beach, except for his head), who is now taking lives with no mercy and running amok on this strange new world called After Blue where men can’t exist because of in-grown neck hairs. And then, just when you think you’ve got a handle on the plot, suddenly Roxy of IKEA is on a horse led through the (simultaneously sandy and gooey) wastelands of the planet by her mom, and they’re dropped into an art house lesbian soft porn spaghetti western which is costumed by the clearance rack of a really affluent neighborhood’s Urban Outfitters. (That’s a compliment of the highest degree, mind you.)

 I managed to find my new favorite insult: “you’re more deflated than a 100-year old’s tit,” but otherwise, I have no idea what was going on for any of its one hundred thirty minutes. And if you tell me you do, I won’t believe you. To be quite frank, I don’t even think the director, writer, or cast understand what’s happening, either. In fact, this movie is what I imagine someone would write if they dropped acid and watched Thunderdome followed by Fury Road and The Neverending Story, and when he came down you asked him to describe it blow by blow, but first you let him get ripped off the bong before starting to write, and halfway through telling it the high hits super hard, so he forgot French is his native tongue and he just starts writing in English in random accents until it circles back to French again, and then the high hits its peak ends up in a ball of tears screaming “ATREYYYYYYUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!,” so you bring him down to Earth with a binge of his comfort watch “Xena: Warrior Princess.”

 I don’t know, y’all. I don’t know what I watched, and I don’t know what it’s about. For all I know it could be a true story. Who knows! Maybe I should ask Kate Bush? If it is true? Well then, I, for one, welcome our chaotic new sexy lesbian overlords of the future, because if this is the world we have even a remote option of living in!? Je suis comme Flynn!

 (P.S. I forgot to mention there’s a trippy visual over the credits and a sort of mid/post credits scene so you can stick around and watch those too for an extra treat.)