In
most lifeboat scenarios, it is women and children first. That is not necessarily the case for the
hypotheticals one philosophy class will grapple with. Logic will be the first
thing thrown over the side in John Huddles’ After
the Dark (trailer
here), which
opens this Friday in select theaters.
The
elite philosophy class of Jakarta’s western school for wealthy expats is a
little put out having to do work on the final day of class, but Mr. Zimit is
playing hardball with their grades. They will each draw a profession from his
box and then vote on who gets a place in the bomb shelter. There are twenty of
them and enough air and provisions in the bunker for ten.
As
their “thought experiments” play out, we see the survivors interacting, like
rats trapped in a cage, but since they are all just jawing back in their
Jakarta classroom, where is all this melodrama coming from? It gets rather
puzzling at times as when, for obvious reasons of jealousy, Zimit decrees James,
the just-getting-by boyfriend of his prized pupil Petra, shall hence force be
gay. To be true to himself, James subsequently starts sleeping with the class’s
token gay Adonis in bunker world. That drives Petra into the bunker-arms of
Zimit, which in turn disturbs James because he always had a bad feeling about
that guy. Frankly, it would be much more interesting to see how that could
possibly come out in a classroom conversation than to sit through the dramatic
representation.
Dark’s basic premise
is intriguing, but the execution is a logical shipwreck, starting at the top
with Mr. Zimit. Supposedly he wants his students to think like philosophers,
but it is more like he is training them to be actuaries. You’re a gelato maker—sorry not much earnings
potential there. In a running gag, Zimit summarily executes the poor shmuck
stuck being the poet before selection even begins, because he so obviously
lacks utility. Really, that is what a philosophy teacher thinks of poetry? I put it to you Mr. Zimit, any philosophy instructor
who neglects the age old philosophic study of aesthetics is a substandard
teacher who therefore must relinquish his role in deciding who will live and
who will die.
Regardless,
Sophie Lowe is surprisingly good as Petra, the sensitive smartie. The whole class is ridiculously attractive,
but the girls generally sound more convincingly like members of a
gifted-and-talented class than the meathead guys. Yet, the film’s real trump
card is the Indonesian locales that add a distinctively surreal wtf-ness that
helps forestall all the questions regarding logical inconsistencies.
