After the Dark
Tags: philosophical

Plot synopsis:
Mr. Zimit, a philosophy teacher at an international school in Jakarta, has been challenging his class of twenty with thought exercises to prepare them for their future. On the last day of school, he holds an exercise in which he posits an oncoming atomic apocalypse. There is a bunker to shelter them for a year, but it only has supplies for ten people, so his students have to decide who of them should be allowed in. The top student, Petra, initially refuses to participate, but Zimit threatens to lower her boyfriend James' academic score if she does not.
Zimit distributes cards that contain a detail about the students' characters in the exercise: James is an organic farmer and Petra is an engineer. The students defend their right to enter the shelter, then there's a group vote after discussion. Students with skills judged useful for survival are allowed in, such as James and Petra, while those who don't are refused, such as Beatrice, a fashion designer. Zimit is part of the exercise but his skills are hidden. At first the students agree to let him in, but Zimit executes the students who have been rejected, claiming that it is more humane than letting them die by radiation. The remaining students race into the bunker before the explosion, locking out Zimit. Outside, Zimit holds up a card saying that only he has the exit code. After living out the year in the bunker, the survivors discover that the exit code is necessary. All attempts of breaking out of the bunker are futile, and after supplies run out they commit group suicide.
They decide to try the exercise again. The cards given earlier are revealed to contain a secondary detail that change the votes, e.g. Georgina, who was allowed in earlier because of her status as a surgeon, now has possibly contracted the Ebola virus and is rejected. Petra and James are still voted in despite James' additional character detail of being gay. Zimit and the chosen students enter the bunker, and agree to start procreating immediately. Various heterosexual pairs get together, but as James is gay in this exercise, Petra has to sleep with Zimit. After ten weeks there are no pregnancies, and Zimit argues that they need to change partners. When Bonnie, a soldier with eidetic memory, refuses, Zimit threatens her with a gun. Jack stabs Zimit, who responds by opening the doors and killing everyone. James questions Zimit's motives for the exercise, asking why he seems intent on punishing them. After checking the box with the cards, James discovers that his and Petra's were fixed, though Zimit refuses to explain his reasons.
Petra insists the exercise be carried out a third time, and asks everyone to trust her to choose who gets to enter the bunker. She picks people who are a potential risk or have non-technical skills, including an opera singer and poet, which angers Zimit. Petra herself refuses to enter the bunker, but is pushed inside when Chips switches places with her before the door closes. Zimit is outright refused entry since his exit code is no longer necessary—Bonnie remembers it from the previous iteration. Petra continues the thought exercise, explaining that the year in the bunker was enjoyable and filled with creativity. When they leave, they discover that the bombs never fell. Zimit narrates that they will die, as none of them have the technical skills to survive, but Petra counters that they will live the rest of their short lives well and welcome death when it arrives. Zimit arrives at the beach, having survived in a cave for the past year, and threatens to shoot James, but the rest of the survivors stand in front of him.
Back in class, Zimit is discomfited by the latest exercise. At the end of the session, everyone leaves except Petra, who accuses Zimit of trying to use the exercise to punish her and James. Zimit has been having an affair with Petra, and he believes James is beneath her. Petra argues that intelligence isn't all that matters. The film ends with Zimit alone in the school as he contemplates suicide.

Review: The concept of this movie seemed promising; a philosophical thought experiment where you must decide who should live and who should die, all presented in a way that was both entertaining and involving for the audience.
In the end though, I came away feeling that the script had been written by two people: the first 2 thirds were written by someone who did a crash course in philosophy and had only a vague understanding of the ideas they were trying to explore, and the final third was written by someone who manages to pull off the challenge of being unbelievably self-righteous despite their IQ of 70.
The writer isn't trying to write a thought provoking script, he's trying to write a 'feel good' story that ignores reality and is completely unrelated to anything previously discussed in the movie.
I think the movie does deserve some credit for presenting a story that will get viewers thinking about some interesting concepts, for that I would still recommend it for people unfamiliar with philosophy, but if you are familiar with the concepts covered then I don't think it's worth watching as it will add nothing new to what you already know and will probably end up just irritating you..
From checking out the trailer I've started watching the movie with good expectations about a philosophical mystery with interesting twists.
I will not go into details as there are far too many instances in every scene of the film that make you question the believability that these students have ever taken a single philosophy class.To enjoy this film I feel you need to ignore the played out apocalyptic scenarios completely and only focus on the two lead characters and the teacher and take it for what it is.
I feel the point of this film may have been missed...First off- if you're a philosopher, a pensive person or enjoy riddles and the like, you will no doubt enjoy this movie.
Instead what this film does is take a very well-known philosophical debate whereby a group must decide between them who shall be fit to continue the human race in special circumstances, but applies it to a younger generation of adults today and how a group of us may think differently to that of a group asked the same thing, say, 50 years ago.
since my review has to be at least 10 lines long let me just again point out the fact that this movie insults each and every one person that watches it by how stupid and retarded it is.
It's all so silly; it's all so theatrical!After The Dark is the story of a philosophy teacher (James D'Arcy) and his challenge, a thought experiment, to a class of what reveals itself to be entirely composed of over-privileged, pretentious know-it-alls.
It asks these students, and the viewer, if faced with an apocalyptic scenario and the one bunker that can sustain life is only sufficient for ten of the group, the rest to be excluded and doomed to ultimately perish, which would you choose to enter the bunker based on skill-sets, their value, or reproductive ability?While it starts strongly enough, and these questions unravel with the narrative playing out in a magical, visual story-like fashion, soon the veil begins to lift, and as the students and teacher implode under the pressures of the experiment, so does the film.We're given stiff, cardboard characters who are borderline impossible to invest ourselves in.
And most insultingly, we're given what initially feels like smart philosophy, only for the writing to continually stutter and trip over itself, as if to remind us that we're watching a movie.
The 'plot' has no premise and is utterly transparent, and the characters seem to be spewing out words that they don't understand making their pseudo-intelligent conversations feel laboured.There is a slight twist toward the end but alas, it's as weak and weary as the rest of the movie.By all means watch the pretty boys and girls living out their puerile fantasies in spectacular settings, but don't go into it with any other expectations.
On the other hand, the last five pages would include a surprising and unexpected ending that makes it seem like the book (movie) would be worth the time.
Ultimately, in either scenario, you arrive at the conclusion of why did I even bother.In terms of the movie, I found the plot interesting with trying to pick 10 people to repopulate the Earth after a catastrophic disaster, but then the "philosophy class" dynamic should have turned me off immediately, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt.
The script of this movie seems like something my friend would have wrote in college while he was taking his hard narcotics.While this movie failed on many levels, it does present an interesting take on the humanity and morality of people from a host of different backgrounds as many of the characters place emphasis on different abilities and qualities when trying to decide the group of ten that would live through these fictionalized disasters..
My only guess was the director realized the plot line would hold the viewers attention for about ten minutes so he best compensate with plenty of eye candy!Again I will repeat as the other reviewers that the concept of the story is interesting but within the first 20 or so minutes the movie just becomes unbearable to sit through so I just suggest to concentrate on the eye candy.The only message I got out of the story is - 'One way or another you are going to die - you can't get out of life alive'!.
Instead, it leaves you questioning the fate of some of the characters and why the last hour of the movie was even relevant.Aside from some beautiful cinematography, satisfying performances from a young cast and an original take on a film, 'After the Dark' doesn't deliver.
Naive, narcissistic, wealthy, entitled children refute reason to support idyllic and childish emotional mores.There is no 'Philosophy' in this film.The haughty, self-righteous disrespectful students grasp at pop-culture 'moral' themes and contradict themselves, fail to present any kind of coherency or conclusion.Watching this film was insulting on so many levels.I would consider banning this film for younger audiences - it's worse than brain rot.
Imagine a 13 year old who has no idea what a philosophy class is, no idea how people would act in a life threatening situation, a weirdly vindicative and not-at-all realistic teacher character, and the stupidest ending ever and he'd still write a better script than this..
Set in the intellectual settings of a philosophy class, a series of thought experiments are conducted in the movie, that are designed to question how we actually value things in life.While it asserts that idealistic thinkers would never be able to live by their righteous principles in a post cataclysmic event, it goes on to show that when it comes to our very survival, our decisions would eventually be governed by our emotions of love, likes, hate, entertainment and pleasure and not merely on logical thinking and the skills of our profession as one would readily assume.Not all of the action takes place in the beautiful constructed world of the thought experiments, the desire by the professor of the philosophy class to get even with one of his students, the use of ingenious mechanisms to influence the randomness of the thought experiments, as well as the jealousy and betrayal which show up in the relations between them, all go on to assert that when dealing with humans, 'emotions rule'.
He/she might start to think, how things actually should play out and what the rules really are.Having said that, we do have our beautiful people on board (seems Philosophers or those who want to become one) are beautiful.
The film revolves around's a set of apocalyptic scenarios where only 10 people can only live in a bunker for a year the other's must iver fight for them self or die in the blast, but here where philosophy come in to play with logic in the way who would be the best ten people that would best suit a future to rebuild the human race to those that would be completely unless , logic dictate that people with needed skill need to be chosen to live to build the human race back but mistake's can be made if you don't use logic right.
This film is prove why you should never listen to some bad review's & view the film for yourself because your missing out on gems like this film because this is intelligently made & very clever with the wild card element in the philosophy which throws the choice do you chose to save the wild card or do you chose to let that person but it comes with a price which is logic because the choice could save your life as well or it could kill you that is show perfectly in this film.This is a film i recommend if you know philosophy & logic because you will really enjoy this film if you get the the point of the film..
The movie has a professor take a philosophy class into thought experiments about whom, out of 20 or so students including the Professor, ought to be a part of the final 10 that will endure a year in a life saving bunker to promulgate the human species after a worldwide atomic war.
- a mash up of the profession and personal backgrounds.It is playful with logic as the tables are turned on logic in each of the 3 thought experiments.The point of the movie, and they drop a hint by one narrative during the film, is that logic is thrown out the door when morality comes to play.
The ending proves that.The movie had some fun and some serious moments and the changing thought experiments kept me wanting to see the outcomes.
scenarios.So, who gets to stay and who gets to die - *thats* what this movie is about.It is a talkie film, but you get to think about the usefulness of the kind of person that you would include in a bunker following a world-wide disaster.
It's basically about a teacher of philosophy who asks his students to take part in a thought experiment and think of what would happen if they witnessed a nuclear war and based on their different sets of skills and attributes decide which ones deserve to go into the bunker.
Basically, your time will be spent listening to the characters talk and try to decide which ones deserve to survive so that they can build up humanity from the scratch and if you don't mind listening to really lengthy but interesting dialogues, then by all means watch this movie..
The story was quite good but the final scenes really ruined it to answer questions that weren't there to be answered until that point.The main actress is really bad though, she uses 1 facial expression and 1 tone of voice throughout the entire film and by the end it really starts to get on your nerves.
This film seemed to be of a similar sort, but it lacked that feeling of reality, the film shows a group of students and their teacher discussing who gets to live in a end of the world scenario but they never seem to make believable choices.
Let me start by saying that I loved the concept of this movie, and the way in which they tried to bring this classic thought experiment to life.
However, from both a philosophical and filmmaking perspective, the execution of this story was hugely problematic.I am writing this review as someone who has been a passionate reader, student and teacher of philosophy for many years - and as someone who still regularly uses this very thought experiment as an educational tool.1.
The final iteration of the thought experiment is meant to show us that utilitarianism is a flawed moral philosophy, and that there are other ways of responding to the scenario it has set up.However, our main protagonist is still using the moral philosophy of utilitarianism when she executes her new, and supposedly non utilitarian solution to the crisis - the only difference between what she does in the final round, and what the group did in the previous two rounds, is that she makes judgments about the worth of people and chooses them based on traits she deems to be of value rather than the trials that the class formerly deemed to be of value.The key point though, is that she has still judged people's value based merely on the attributes they posses.3.
The group suicide at the end of the third solution to the thought experiment is not only more like homicide (in that she is the one who decides that everyone else will die), but it is also, once again, utilitarian in nature.She has deemed that their life no longer has value based solely on the fact that they do not posses the necessary functions for rebuilding their brave new world (which is, ironically, exactly what the teacher was trying to get them to do the first two times, and exactly what she was supposedly avoiding with her third and final solution to the problem).From a filmmaking perspective; the suicide bomb was also a very weird and contrived way to achieve that plot point - it was an event that completely violated the very rules which the film had created for itself up until that point.It's one thing to completely change the parameters of the thought experiment as you go (to suit the plot development), it's another thing altogether to start conjuring up fantasy outcomes - an action which was not previously allowed/possible.
The remembering of the code in the third and final round of the thought experiment, by spying on the teacher at the end of the second round, was a complete violation of the laws of the universe the film had created (as well as a violation of how thought experiments work).Even if you change or add to the parameters of a thought experiment in subsequent variations of it, what you are effectively doing with this action is creating a brand new thought experiment to be pondered and debated.It's effectively a reset, where everything goes back to the beginning, except this time some of the fundamental parameters have changed so that different logical arguments are brought into play.But having a character do something like steal a code from a previous discussion of the thought experiment, and then use it in a brand new discussion of a band new version, is nonsense at both a philosophy and filmmaking level - if she has the code, why is she also suddenly alive again when, at the end of the previous thought experiment she was killed in the process of acquiring the code.6.
The ending of the movie is terrible, and it really deflates what has been a solid effort at filmmaking up until that point.a. We, the audience, despite not having been given any reason to do so, are suddenly expected to care about a creepy (and almost certainly illegal) affair that the teacher is having with a much younger student.b. The nature of the character of the lead female suddenly undergoes a totally inexplicable 180 degree change, for no good reason, just so that a contrived ending can be executed c.
I like a lot of these actors it is not really their fault but the fault of the writer who thought his/her experience in a philosophy class would be worth the time to watch.
This review contains spoiler.Here is what I think this movie wanted to be: A very smart, very deep, very artistic film conveying a super important message.And here is what I think it turned out to be: A philosophy professor tries to prove some point to his students by carrying out a thought-experiment.
The movie is changing its premise as it goes, making the choices of the 10 be about the stay in the bunker ("oooh, it's all about the JOURNEY, not the goal!"), rather than the chances of survival after-wards.And the final nail in the coffin is at the end, when it is revealed that the teacher has personal, emotional reasons for his entire thought experiment, AND we don't hear whether he even lets the students (who rebelled against his ideas) pass the course or not!Ultimately, it is a movie which pretends to be about ideas, but is really about characters, and not in a successful way, either.
(Since they simply made up everything in these 'experiments' as they went along, and predicted some imaginary outcome of each imaginary and ridiculous scenario, I think they should have come up with something MUCH more interesting to watch.) We suffered through this movie just hoping it would get better.
This is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time.Not because everything overall is so bad, but because it is the exact opposite of what it set out to do.Objective: create a movie that incorporates a background thriller in a philosophical game.Execution: a nonsensical mess, with no rational progression or connections, that erodes into a mawkish love story - both personal and for the human condition - devoid of any meaning.It starts out with the simple idea of choosing who will survive a disaster, based on a debate of merit and utility.
I give two stars to After the dark - The philosophers because no good movie ends without explaining the sense of the story itself (and I'm not talking about a little detail, but the whole plot!).
It seems like the movie tried to get onto too many emotional levels with different people rather than just focusing on a solid philosophical idea, and trying to play it out.