After Death
“In another life, ‘After Death’ would be garbage.” This is what one of the subjects of this project says. They don’t think our reality is as real as an afterlife they claim to have seen. That’s why it’s a feature (to put it kindly) and not, like I said before, a documentary. This weekend alone, “After Death” will be playing in over 2,200 theaters. You can’t ignore that. But you also can’t believe it not if you think of an infomercial as anything other than successful.
“After Death” is only trying to sell one thing: itself. The latest from Angel Studios the indie distributor that made summer headlines with its release of “Sound of Freedom,” then asked people to donate money for other people to see it and raised the movie’s box office total in doing so, same pitch at end credits, Stephen Gray co-director says words (edited differently), QR code next to face as with Caviezel but this time around it’s a white pamphlet printed earnestly full of strange stories from someone who just wanted to share their faith so bad, only for them more pollution was created.
For a long time, America has been fueled by fantasies of the most extravagant kind and comfort beyond anything this world can offer. Things we can’t know until we die. An afterlife, the pearly gates. “After Death” fits into that tradition with a bunch of talking heads who had terribly traumatic physical events that they’ve bundled here as Near-Death Experiences which prove God and heaven exist. Many of them have also written a bestselling book about death, as these credits inform us. A few of them have medical backgrounds. They talk about how there are no words on earth to describe what they saw, and the power of this documentary or so it hopes is that it can use cinematic tools like swooping drone shots and “Oppenheimer” like balls of fire to make real the intangible.
The stories they tell are not entirely unmoving. Not at first. They are stories of unimaginable trauma, of pain so great it can define a person. One man crashed a plane, another was declared dead from extreme stomach problems, one more talks about a suicide attempt that led him to seeing God as a ball of light. All returned from these experiences with memories being out of their body or in some other realm that is more colorful and bright (and loud) than our own. Even the blind have supposedly been able to see when presented in some afterlife like scenario accounts we only ever hear about, but still. While many appear well-acquainted with telling their stories beyond their purpose for this project it does not humanize them further than its message needs them to be: They’re just always sitting there, adding to the wonky project’s grave self seriousness with light hitting one side of their face.
These stories are told by co-directors Gray and Chris Radtke with all the emotional tact of summer blockbuster trailers swelling strings, fast cuts, special-effects heavy reenactments that hog most of the budget. The accounts are sometimes clunkily assembled so that we learn a little about one story, then hear another, then hear another. Intercut interviews tell us how intense their respective pain was or how finalizing it should have been. Their experience becomes our sloppy spectacle.
Midway through, “After Death” thinks you’ve bought these transcendental experiences (and maybe you have). From there, it’s about awe as it lets one man rip with his near death experience and how it made him want to be a better father and son. Then “After Death” is all about the spectacle and the emotion that can be wrung from such an experience, and then curdles with a creepiness when it lets people talk for longer than they need to. That’s when Don Piper who tells his story in a book called “90 Minutes in Heaven,” which was adapted into a feature in 2015 says something illuminating in this way of thinking and its reckless promotion here. “Nothing compares to Heaven. That is the most real thing. That is my reality.” And he points to the floor: “This is not.”
With a project this bad-faith, skepticism needs to be acknowledged the gravity that can bring lofty ideas like these down to earth (this one). “After Death” does this slightly with words from one of its many medical professionals/bestselling authors.
To be more skeptical in general it does not so much as negate the logical point. Why do you have doubts that these stories do not serve as proof? One side is contending for physical evidence, the other is arguing for lights and choirs one can’t see or hear. (Another challenge for critical thinking: when someone else discussing the same topic says, “I don’t have any reason to think it is true except that I also lack any reason to believe it’s false.”)
Piper does say one thing that makes sense at the very end though. “The death rate is 100%.” Yup, everyone dies. Can’t argue with that. They’re even selling a $45 sweatshirt with this phrase on it through Angel Studios’ website right now.
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