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Good start, but then it gets ruined

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Yes, it is true, ideas are very free and while they are not carried out, they are only ideas. I was watching this movie and tailor, which slowly to satiety, was advancing, he told me, where this movie is going to go. True, what I feared happened. These criticisms are of cinema, therefore it is necessary to speak of the cinematographic part, but one of them is the script and what it tries to say. I'll just ask if you would think the same thing if you do it to your daughter, mother, girlfriend.The film is extremely slow. It is one thing to tell things with a tempo and another is to count and fill.He has some good, sober performances. From where, I imagine that I wanted to take the director and where the script goes. Another thing is that you can see with pleasure, as each character in the film responds, the truth is that I can not see many of them with pleasure.The photograph, which being cold, since the subject is very strong. But it is not a good photograph, it is too white. It should have gone more to cold.As always these Swedish films, they have an address, very simple and simple. They do not bother anything to tell a script, they do not mind the slowness or the camera.It is set to the present day and it is achieved.The rest of what the film defends each will have their ideas.

The moral dilemma this film is about, is excellently summed up by a small piece of conversation, in one of the first scenes. Teenager John enters a classroom, and several students start protesting and walking out. Teacher: 'Everybody has a right to a second chance'. Student: 'Everybody has a right to live'. For the attentive viewer, at that moment it becomes clear that John might have committed a murder. Later on, several scenes help understanding what exactly happened. The film essentially is about forgiving, or more precise about the willingness to forgive. The interesting thing is that the viewer at first is inclined to sympathize with John, who seems to be the victim of ruthless rejection by the community. But later on, it becomes clear that in reality John is a hopeless case, a socially inept person who makes things impossible for everyone around him. Above all for his father, who also has to cope with John's younger brother and his stubborn grandfather. Apart from posing a moral dilemma, the film also has an interesting father-son dimension. It shows how difficult it can be for a parent to love a child that has severe psychological problems. At times, the film reminded me of Xavier Dolan's 'Mommy' and Lynne Ramsay's 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'. Both films explore the same theme, and 'The Here After' can easily stand next to them. One very important element in the film is the camera work. It is done by Lukasz Zal, who also contributed to the stunning cinematography of the Polish film 'Ida'. The movie is mostly filmed by fixed cameras, and the image doesn't move even if the action sometimes shifts out of the camera frame. This gives the film something special, as if the awkward way the characters interact, is echoed by the immovable images. By the way: I didn't quite understand the title 'The Here After', which I associate with life after death. Apparently, the original Swedish title 'Efterskalv' means 'Aftershock', for example in the context of an earthquake. It makes me wonder why the English title is so much different.

Saw this at the Rotterdam film festival (IFFR) 2016. I sat down fully in the mood to sympathize with John, given the synopsis. Our education has taught us that there is always a time to forgive and forget. Apparently the village is not ready for that, maybe just not open-minded enough. They want to uphold their defiant attitude, and don't offer John the slightest leeway to let him show he has learned from the institute where he stayed for several years. But it is easy for us to say from our comfy chair. My perspective changed gradually throughout the developments of the story.At first, on his positive side, John does not defend himself from physical assaults or threats. Against his basic instincts he shows a strong will to prevent any cause to be expelled from school or sent back to jail. It takes some time for us to understand why he is stonewalled by his class mates, while the past is gradually revealed in bits and pieces. Yet, the unwelcoming attitude of the villagers seems overly harsh from the very outset, all things considered.On his negative side, John's wish to return to his former school is challenging everyone involved, and it can be deemed ill-advised to begin with. Moreover, his return and non-acceptance by his peers also influences domestic relationships with his father and brother. There is no mother, and it surprised me that we don't get to know how this came about. Maybe it was irrelevant for the plot anyway. On the other hand, it could have made the story less one-dimensional. In the given situation the father has to cope on his own. A mother, of even a step mother, could have added some extra flesh to the domestic situation and the interactions with the outside world.Later on, my attitude towards John changed to the negative side, along with a similar but more abrupt attitude change by his girlfriend. It happens all of a sudden, in a scene that clearly demonstrates John as a loose cannon and hot headed. In a later scene at the school canteen his girlfriend stated "you scare the hell out of everyone here", at the same time keeping him at arm's length, even unwilling to jointly eat their lunch. Another important protagonist is the school director. She seems a bit soft and very politically correct in the beginning. However, further to the finale, she demonstrates a firm position and a clear policy. She is not understood by everyone around, the majority of whom did not want to blame the fellow pupils, everyone being all too hasty to easily shift all the blame on John.All in all, the synopsis had put me on the wrong foot by maneuvering me in the theoretically correct position that there always comes a time to forgive and forget, better late than never. The dramatic developments along the story line caused a change of (my) heart, and the script as such did a fine job of triggering this drastic 180 degrees change. On the other hand, the underlying reason that John does not receive a warm welcome is a bit one-dimensional, more than strictly necessary. I think that an elaborated domestic situation could have made a more colorful picture, for example by adding a (step)mother to include a bit extra tension due to some triangular father/mother/son controversies.

This is a film, which struggles to make clear what it wants to be. It is also riddled with inconstancy's which leaves the viewer wondering just what they are being offered. The first part, the arrival, John arrives home from an unspecified period of time, in an unspecified institution, his monosyllabic part of the overall script, quickly lead this watcher to wonder if they might be better off leaving the viewing and reading a newspaper? Moving onto the next part, which fails significantly to clarify the muddy mist, which has descended over the screening. Whilst the action improves significantly, with the arrival of some form of normality, the lack of any relationship between father and son is slightly clarified by the arrival of granddad, but remains boring. The final segment of the film is no clearer than the rest, but at least by then we do have a fuller idea as to just what is going on, but only just. I understand that the film maker, was making an analogy of Swedish Society and the problems that unchecked immigration is bringing Sweden and there way of life. But there are far better ways of getting your message across, that migration is a massive problem and is causing no end of problems between Swedes and uncle tom cobly and all.