Carlos Reygadas' 2007 feature Silent Light was
simultaneously the Mexican director's most accessible and most widely admired film yet, with many suggesting that he was showing signs of filmmaking
maturity after starting his career with two portentous and provocative pictures.
As if intentionally rebuking such claims, Reygadas' Post Tenebras Lux is his
most obtuse and challenging work yet; a film that defies interpretation and
will surely infuriate many viewers who were drawn to the director's previous
effort. This non-linear, surrealist exploration of loosely connected incidents in
the life of a Mexican family has been described by the director as "an
expressionist painting" and your appreciation of the film may depend in
large part on how much you get from the images he conjures. More often than
not, I got very little aesthetic joy from this perplexing picture, which is a terrible
shame, as the opening sequence is simply astonishing.
Shooting in Academy ratio, Reygadas opens his film with his
own daughter Rut, following her has she runs happily through a muddy field,
shouting the names of the cows and dogs that wander around her, and
occasionally calling for her mother. It's a striking image of innocence and
freedom, one that recalled the gloriously unlocked childhood images of last
year's The Tree of Life, but as the scene progresses, night falls, and the
toddler ends the scene shrouded in darkness as lightning flashes on the
horizon. Throughout this attention-grabbing sequence, Reygadas utilises an
unusual camera effect, which causes the edges of the frame to blur around a sharp central iris. Is this
effect supposed to indicate a dream? A memory? A point of view? I continued to try and work out
what lay behind this visual choice throughout Post Tenebras Lux, but never got
close to an answer.
Answers are unforthcoming on a number of levels here. The
camerawork, the motivations of the characters and the order of scenes all
confound, even as the director's evident mastery occasionally breaks through to
beguiling effect. The confrontational urge that defined Reygadas' first two
films is on display in a horrible scene of violence committed against a dog and
a long sequence set in a French (?) sauna frequented by glum-looking swingers, but these
solemn moments sit side-by-side with a number of unexpectedly goofy touches.
What are we to make of the horned red devil who wanders into a house carrying a
toolbox? Or the man who commits suicide in the most ridiculous way imaginable?
Or the two inexplicable scenes set during an English school rugby match? I
would say that they feel out of place, but the film is so impenetrable in its
structure I can't confidently argue against any of it. In a picture like Post Tenebras Lux, I guess anything goes.
Such complaints about logic and cohesion aren't necessarily
enough to kill a movie for me. I've seen and loved enough films that don't
entirely make sense, movies that operate on a dream logic rather than being
tethered to conventional narrative, but something else about Post Tenebras Lux
did get in the way. That out-of-focus border employed in the film's outdoor
photography – a trick utilised in an apparently arbitrary manner – spoiled my
enjoyment of the director's undeniable visual sense. The images captured by
Alexis Zabe boast extraordinary clarity and richness of colour, but they feel
hemmed in by the boxy aspect ratio and the self-defeating affectation that the
director has imposed upon them. Reygadas is a director with considerable talent, but Post Tenebras Lux is an opaque, frustrating
drag. The title translates as "After Darkness, Light," but following
the glories of Reygadas' Silent Light, this film feels like a step in the
opposite direction.