On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: AFTER FALL, WINTER (FilmBuff).

AFTER FALL, WINTER

By Chris Claro

Early in Eric Schaeffer’s overlong and icky AFTER FALL, WINTER, a French woman reminds Schaeffer’s character that “there’s a big difference between you thinking your life is interesting and anyone else thinking it is.” It’s interesting that the guy who wrote that line is as unaware of its stinging truth as Schaeffer is.

A filmmaker who has made a cottage industry of making films that explore his self-perceived interestingness, Schaeffer has spent almost twenty years offering variations on his neurotic, self-obsessed, insufferably narcissistic persona, beginning with the twee MY LIFE’S IN TURNAROUND, to the precious IF LUCY FELL, through the indulgent THEY’RE OUT OF THE BUSINESS. Now it seems that he has topped himself with the truly offensive AFTER FALL, WINTER.

Set in Paris, AFTER FALL, WINTER features the return of Schaffer’s TURNAROUND protagonist, Michael, a one-and-done novelist half a million dollars in debt. Convinced by a friend to shake his depression in Paris, Michael heads to the city of lights where he meets Sophie, a woman who lives a bifurcated life as both a dominatrix and a glorified candy striper. As their relationship progresses, secrets are revealed, lives are changed, and much BDSM is displayed.

Schaeffer’s Michael is a deplorable character, equal parts self-pity and narcissism, and his 130-minute odyssey, which leads to a grossly contrived ending straight out of ROMEO AND JULIET, is crass and unpleasant. Schaeffer wants his audience to think that he’s being “daring” by depicting aberrant sexual practices and full frontal male nudity as signifiers, but what he’s really doing is working out his own neuroses under cover of fiction. The creepy, voyeuristic vibe of AFTER FALL, WINTER is one of its least savory characteristics and keeps the audience from truly connecting with its characters.

A series of prolonged conversations punctuated by “shocking” scenes of sex and bondage, AFTER FALL, WINTER is less a movie than an indulgence, something that is true of almost all of Schaeffer’s work. As writer, director, producer, and star, Schaeffer clearly does not play well with others, eschewing collaboration in favor of shining the light on himself and his character, such as it is. As a result, enduring a Schaeffer film is akin to one of the great guilty pleasures for New Yorkers of the 1970s: watching unctuous, oily talk show host Stanley Siegel engage in therapy sessions on the air. (If you’re outside the tri-state area and haven’t experienced it, do a youtube search for Siegel. You won’t be sorry.)

On Demand Weekly spoke with Eric Schaeffer, writer, director and star of the new movie on demand, AFTER FALL, WINTER (FilmBuff).

On Demand Weekly (ODW): Your films are known for New York locations. What prompted you to include Paris for AFTER FALL, WINTER?

Eric Schaeffer (ES): I do have deep love for my home town and love filming here. I take it as the highest compliment when people say it feels like New York City is a character in my films. Having said that, I also like to challenge myself with every film I make and I’ve always thought it would be a huge challenge to make a film in a country where I don’t speak the language and while AFTER FALL, WINTERis primarily in English, there is some French spoken in the film and certainly a lot of French spoken in Paris.

I had never even lived outside New York for more than a 3 month stretch in my entire life so living in Paris for the 5 months it took to write and shoot the film was pure magic… and taught me that my love for my city and my country, that was profound before I left, was even more meaningful upon my return.

And lastly, Paris played a part in FALL, the first of the planned quartet of films about Michael Shiver, the main character in both FALL and AFTER FALL, WINTER, so setting it in Paris will make sense to those who have seen Fall but for those who haven’t, the new movie completely stands alone so they won’t feel left out of any important information, character or plot wise at all.

ODW: Could the exploration of loss & pain be explored in any other locale for this story?

ES: Paris certainly is a breathtakingly gorgeous city, replete with imbedded pathos seemingly at every turn so it is a rich and visually impactful place to film a movie about the exploration of pain and loss for sure. But certainly, as we all know, pain and loss are so personal and introspective that they are like a world unto themselves and as such often blur the vision of anything outside is anyway, so our geography in the real world is rendered meaningless and uniform. Unless of course we want to really drive the emotion home by going to a specific place that has significance to the origin of the pain and loss we are feeling. In this movie, Paris is such a place for Michael, but places like that are also places where we hope to get closure on heartache so that we can move on. So this movie could have worked someplace else as well, but I felt it made the most sense to take place in Paris.

ODW: What can you tell potential viewers about what the S&M scenes bring to the plot?

ES: The BDSM (Editor’s Note: derived from the terms bondage and discipline (B&D or B/D), dominance and submission (D&S or D/s), and sadism and masochism) in the film is portrayed more as psychological than physical. While there are a few scenes where BDSM is played out in the physical realm, they are less violent than the punishment doled out by the characters on each other’s hearts and emotions.

All of the BDSM scenes, whether physical or emotional are endemic to a story about people with secrets and people who want intimacy desperately, but are afraid and confused about how to get it.

The BDSM scenes

are both metaphorically

and literally crucial to the story

and very powerful visual

and psychological storytellers.

ODW: Where did you find the lead actress, Lizzie Brocheré?

ES: I was casting in Paris with a wonderful casting director and finding it hard to get the perfect actress to play this very complex role. One day I went to lunch and saw this very interesting girl out front of the casting offices and thought, “wow! That girl looks PERFECT! Hopefully she’s coming in to audition after lunch.” When I returned to casting, that girl was gone and she never came in so I sadly figured she much just live on the street or something. I went to get a tea in the kitchen of the casting offices during a break and suddenly, there was THAT girl, sitting at a desk in the back of the office. I went back in to the casting room and said to casting director, “Sylvie, who is that girl in your office?” “What girl? There’s no one here.” Sylvie replied. “THAT GIRL” I pointed out. Sylvie looked more closely. “Oh you mean my daughter?” I was like, “Is she an actress?” “Of course. Since she was 12 years old.” “Well why isn’t she auditioning?” “She’s too young. She’s only 26.” And I was like, “she’s not too young! Get her in here!” And the rest is history. She was amazing.

ODW: You have a recurring theme of the word "fall" (or variations of it) in your film titles (FALL, IF LUCY FELL). Could you elaborate on the prevalence of the word?

ES: Honestly, I originally wrote If Lucy Fell for Molly Ringwald to star in and she obviously didn’t end up doing it. One day when we were sitting on a bench in Santa Monica over looking the ocean she came up with the title. I loved it and it stuck.

In my film Fall, it made sense as a title as a double entendre. Falling in love and the season of fall, which for that film seemed like the season the story should be set in. So really, while I do love the word for many reasons, it’s romance and yearning among them, it really was by accident that I used them in both titles.

These questions are a nod to your character in the film...

ODW: What is your greatest fear?