Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £6.99 a month
Eden and After
Alain Robbe-Grillet’s sensual fantasy follows a group of students who enter a bizarre sado-masochistic realm after taking a mysterious drug.
Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Overview
Alain Robbe-Grillet’s first film in colour finds him audaciously marrying his theories of narrative experimentation with a highly sensual visual style to create one of his most distinctive works. It charts the descent into depravity of a group of bourgeois students, who enter a bizarre sado-masochistic desert realm after taking a mysterious drug called “fear powder”. As their realities distort and their interrelationships diverge into master-slave hierarchies, Robbe-Grillet’s narrative becomes ever more fractured and fevered.
Partially set in Tunisia, the film’s desert setting was in fact a key factor in the film’s genesis, with the country’s red and yellow desert hues convincing Robbe-Grillet he could finally make a film in colour, having previously expressed dissatisfaction with the way Eastmancolor stock conveyed the colour green. Drawing on an array of visual influences from Piet Mondrian to Marcel Duchamp and Paul Klee, Robbe-Grillet certainly found favour with his new palette (revelling especially in splashes of red blood), but it was arguably the theories of sonic adventurers that proved the most pertinent. The director was fascinated with the twelve-tone musical structures of August Schoenberg and Pierre Boulez, so he structured his plot as a series of twelve recurring themes rather than a conventional narrative. Despite the rather stiff-sounding theories and formal experiments that Robbe-Grillet adopts, the film is far from a dry exercise. A tactile and playful fantasy brimming with beautiful bodies and startling images, Eden and After is not so much a mystery to unravel but rather a narcotic, sensory experience to bathe in.
Contains strong sex and nudity
Related
Dreams That Money Can Buy Dreams That Money Can Buy
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1948 79 mins Director: Hans Richter
Dadaist Hans Richter attempts to bring the European avant-garde to the masses, with this story about a man who discovers he has the power to create dreams, and sets up a business selling them to others.
Together Together
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1956 48 mins Director: Lorenza Mazzetti
Two deaf-mute dock workers eke out a humble East End existence in Lorenza Mazzetti's striking and poetic example of Free Cinema.
Requiem for a Village Requiem for a Village
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1975 68 mins Director: David Gladwell
The idyllic, pastoral past of a Suffolk village is reborn through memory in this extraordinary, little-known film from director David Gladwell.
Un Chien Andalou Un Chien Andalou
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1928 16 mins Silent Director: Luis Buñuel
A scabrous study of desire, the subconscious and anti-clericalism - Buñuel and Dalí’s provocative first film is a classic of Surrealist cinema.
Gallivant Gallivant
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1997 100 mins Director: Andrew Kötting
Andrew Kötting takes a terrific, twisting coastal tour of the UK with his family.
Fata Morgana Fata Morgana
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1971 76 mins Director: Werner Herzog
Herzog’s intense, dreamlike mediation on desert life as if seen by an alien.
Successive Slidings of Pleasure Successive Slidings of Pleasure
Drama 1974 106 mins Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet’s serpentine erotic mystery presented as a surreal investigation into a woman with feared sexual powers.
Trans-Europ-Express Trans-Europ-Express
Thriller 1966 95 mins Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
This stylish, cult 1966 erotic thriller stars French New Wave icons Jean-Louis Trintigant and Marie-France Pisier.
Fantastic Planet Fantastic Planet
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1973 72 mins Director: René Laloux
René Laloux and Roland Topor’s surreal, psychedelic sci-fi animation imagines a world in which humanoid creatures are kept as pets by a race of giants.
The Iron Rose The Iron Rose
Drama 1973 80 mins Director: Jean Rollin
A pair of lovers have a tryst in a vacant tomb, but then find themselves unable to escape from the graves and crypts of the massive cemetery.
The Beast The Beast
Comedy 1975 98 mins Director: Walerian Borowczyk
An outrageous classic of erotic cinema, Walerian Borowczyk’s playful and subversive fantasy finds a horny heiress courting the ravenous desires of a wild beast.
Eyes without a Face Eyes without a Face
Horror 1959 90 mins Director: Georges Franju
Georges Franju’s gorgeous, poetic horror film about a surgeon’s dark obsession with restoring his daughter’s disfigured face.
Trans-Europ-Express Trans-Europ-Express
Thriller 1966 95 mins Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
This stylish, cult 1966 erotic thriller stars French New Wave icons Jean-Louis Trintigant and Marie-France Pisier.
Successive Slidings of Pleasure Successive Slidings of Pleasure
Drama 1974 106 mins Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet’s serpentine erotic mystery presented as a surreal investigation into a woman with feared sexual powers.
Police Story Police Story
Martial arts 1985 101 mins Director: Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan's mind-blowing, high-octane extravaganza of death-defying stunts and action comedy.
Hapkido Hapkido
Action and Adventure 1972 98 mins Director: Huang Feng
Two martial arts schools battle it out in Huang Feng’s action classic (aka Lady Kung Fu), starring long term collaborator and combat master, Angela Mao.
Project A Project A
Action and Adventure 1983 106 mins Director: Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan’s rip-roaring action-adventure about a coastguard hot on the trail of a ruthless band of pirates in late 19th century Hong Kong.
China O'Brien China O'Brien
Action and Adventure 1991 91 mins Director: Robert Clouse
Cynthia Rothrock stars as the tough city cop and martial artist on the trail of a local crime boss, in this action classic from the director of Enter the Dragon.
Jesus' Son Jesus' Son
Drama 1999 108 mins Director: Alison Maclean
Billy Crudup stars as a young drifter who gets hooked on heroin in this star-studded story of addiction, recovery and redemption.
The New Boy The New Boy
Drama 2023 96 mins Director: Warwick Thornton
Cate Blanchett is mesmerising as a feverish nun, in Warwick Thornton’s striking tale of spiritual worlds colliding in 1940s Australia.