AFTERMATH

A pathologist (played by Pep Tosar) is performing an autopsy on the body of a girl who died in a car accident. Soon, the man will be assaulted by animal instincts that will lead him to sexually abuse the corpse, after having preserved pieces of her organs and taken photographs. A very controversial film, "Aftermath" represents the second chapter of the "Trilogy of Death" as well as the most extreme and disturbing of the series. The film was awarded as the best short film at the Fanta Asia Film Festival in 1997. It is indeed an excellent work in all respects, a true milestone of underground horror cinema. This time, death is staged through a macabre spectacle of necrophilia where defenseless bodies become the object of sadistic perversion. The suggestive and majestic "Lacrimosa" by Mozart introduces us to a sick and shocking story that begins with the tragic death of a girl. Man, a perfect and complicated biological machine, turns into a useless container of offal, raped in body and soul by one of his peers who derives sexual pleasure from the desecration of the dead. The shots, taken in a real morgue, give the film a quasi-documentary cut and, although the corpses seem real and the autopsy scenes realistic, what we are witnessing is entirely cinematic fiction. Excellent are the special effects, carefully crafted and meticulously framed by the camera's eye. The total lack of dialogue makes Pep Tosar's performance (favorite actor of Cerdà) difficult, who, with only gestures and facial expressions, manages to perfectly express what words probably could not have expressed. Crazy and with a deviant mentality, the doctor physically abuses the corpse of the young woman, of whom we only know the name: what remains of a lifeless body, lying on a cold table, if not a name? Technically flawless, the film boasts refined and elegant direction and impeccable photography, where the red of the blood stands out among the cold colors of the morgue. Extremely disturbing are the scenes that probably depict the real stages of an autopsy: it is quite shocking to see a dismembered and randomly stitched body without any care, with the brain inserted into the entrails and a cloth replacing it in the cranial box. That sterile mass of flesh, a horrible and pitiful sight for any sane person, is brutally subdued becoming a source of carnal pleasure for the protagonist who imposes with inhuman brutality his being alive. There is no room for feelings: pity, respect, everything seems to vanish at the very moment the heart stops beating. Cynical and mocking the ending, a real punch in the stomach. In conclusion, we are faced with a work of the highest level, not just a splatter film but a movie that skillfully blends drama, tragedy, madness, and morbidity: an unsettling and sad representation of physical death and inevitable spiritual death.