After Hours

MOVIE #1,723 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 06.12.24 Part of the Jane Campion • Director Focus series Not to be confused with the Martin Scorsese movie with the same title that came out the same year (which I’ll actually be reviewing soon), After Hours is a 25-minute short that Campion helmed as a for-hire job with the Women’s Film Unit of Film Australia. I felt it was a compelling, often oblique character study, though the director herself has mixed feelings about the effort: I don’t like After Hours a lot because I feel like the reasons for making it were impure. I felt a conflict between the project and my artistic conscience. The film … had to be openly feminist since it spoke about the sexual abuse of women at work. I wasn’t comfortable because I don’t like films that say how one should or shouldn’t behave. I think that the world is more complicated than that. [SOURCE]

It’s interesting that she would say that because even the ‘official tagline’ — “The difficulty of separating sexual fantasy and reality become apparent at an investigation of an alledged sexual harassment case” — seems to suggest a clear ambiguity. I really appreciated the quiet, meditative ending that provides little resolution as well (it features a fantastic soundtrack into the closing credits — check it out below).


Lastly, there is only one IMDb user review for this, so naturally it's the "featured review" and it's a doozy...

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,722 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,724 ⫸

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The difficulty of separating sexual fantasy and reality become apparent at an investigation of an alledged sexual harassment case. It was released on July 20, 1985.