Afterlife (1978) User Reviews

Modern and relevant, 35 years later

[Imdbidia · 10/10 · 22 April 2017]

Afterlife is a remarkable short film in any possible way. It was produced in 1978, but it feels modern, daring and fresh. It is wonderfully animated and has a great psychedelic soundtrack, this being the most noticeable element that associates it to the 1970s.

The approach to the story is very New-Age, if you want. We witness the departure of an astral being or soul from the realm of the living and the journey that takes him to the next realm. The imagery is mesmerizing, hypnotic and intriguing. We witness this soul's past experiences, personal attachments and love moments, which are presented in a very touching way. This soulful trip is depicted in an ever-changing series of golden-and-black images that morph into others organically. One of the most intriguing aspects of the film is all the presence of mythical and mythological elements associated to Eastern cultures that intersect with the human experiences that the soul is retrieving, processing an discarding. There is a constant flow of images, but this is a journey of getting rid of the old to evolve and go through the next level, and it is masterfully presented.

My main criticism is that the film might have been as good with 1-2 minutes less of footage.

Afterlife has put Ishu Patel in my radar.

Right up my psychedelic alley.

[punishmentpark · 9/10 · 28 January 2016]

A short interpretation of a dying man who makes the transcendental journey from his earthly body into the spiritual afterlife. Something like that. Very psychedelic, and very crafty. A lot of reminded me of Tool, musically (not the loud parts) and visually. Though it will be so that Tool was influenced by this piece of work from 1978, not the other way around, of course.

This is the first piece I've ever seen by Ishu Patel - I just stumbled upon it via YouTube - and I'm very curious to see more of his work, which consists merely of shorts, as far as I can tell.

For some it might be a little too long and repetitive perhaps, but this sort of thing is right up my alley. A good 9 out of 10.

Almost a mystical experience

[Rectangular_businessman · 9/10 · 1 January 2023]

I actually had the chance of watching this when I was a child; back then I was haunted immensely by its strange imagery and eerie atmosphere.

Most of the esoteric symbolism went over my head, and even as an adult, the meaning of several scenes escape me, but I still appreciate a lot its otherworldy quality, depicting the afterlife in a rather unique manner through animation.

I do agree with the review saying this feels very modern. It has a rather "timeless" quality that goes beyond mere surrealism.

I found completely unbelievable this short didn't even got an Academy Award nomination. Shows once again how those awards barely qualify as form to measure art quality, being a popularity contest more than anything.

8.5/10.

Escape for the future.

[lorenzuccioassini · 10/10 · 8 February 2024]

Afterlife is a 1978 animated short by Ishu Patel that takes an impressionistic look at life after death, based on recent studies, case histories and myths. In the film, the afterlife state is portrayed as a working-out of all the individual's past experiences.

A psychedelic new-age short about what a spiritual human being might find after death.

Opening with the pulsation of a single point in space, as though the dawn of a new beginning and a new experience, the film quickly morphs into the image of a man on his deathbed, at his dying breath. He witnesses his spectral self shift from his corporeal existence to a plane that is quite literally beyond his dimension-the film intertwines the seeming past of this man's life with the life forces of the things around him, from flora to fauna. He is traversed in this make-shift space in a multitude of angles and imaginings, defying the rigidity of his earthly composition and opening up the grandeur of what can only be interpreted as a realm that is truly spectacular and metaphysical.

Patel's use of imagery which combines animal forms with human figures harkens back to the religious imagery of civilizations past, such as that of ancient Egyptian culture; such images evoke the power of nature and more so, the oneness and unity of humans and animals alike, in the abstract continuum that may represent the wholeness of the universe, devoid of any distinction between the various morphologies that populate life.

Closing with an egg, a symbol of birth, which morphs into a tunnel through which a humanoid figure dives, and finally repeating the same pinpoint and heartbeat that had begun the short film, Patel alludes to the possible cyclical nature of life-taking on both the spiritual concept of reincarnation and the empirically observable transition of all living things.