Review of After Hours (1985)
Seen in 2025.
Seen at a near-capacity Cinemateket screening of a vintage analog copy, after a more-than-ten-hour workday.
Paul, a computer clerk in the grip of routine, loses focus when a trainee talks about having a higher ambition in life. That night, Paul descends into the Campbellian netherworld of SoHo.
The last Scorsese film that is not an adaptation, nor a biopic, nor a De Niro vehicle. Instead, this is every genre from a slice-of-life romance, through a fast-motion physical comedy with Cheech and Chong cameos, to full-blown horror in the yuppie nightmare cycle of the contemporary subconscious. It is, primarily, a black comedy, heavy on music and dream, light on closure. The internal connections are many but, even though Martin Scorsese himself operates the metaphorical searchlight at Club Berlin on Mohawk Night, we never find out who’s the burn victim. The many imperfections seem natural to the form at this pace. It’s so perfectly analog, not improvised but unrepeatable misogynist wabi-sabi.
References here: Something Wild (1986), Miracle Mile (1988), The Fisher King (1991), Office Space (1999).