Avant-Garde: The Afterlife Experience

Sean Willets (FilmyGuy1) has got his Avant-Garde competition entry up on YouTube, so I figured I'd get it reviewed.



I must admit that when I first started watching it, and when I saw that he had made more than half of it hurriedly in under 48 hours, I was not impressed. Brickfilmers have had almost a year to get their films done, and the start of the film did not help. It's well shot and well animated, but it falls into two big pitfalls: firstly, the actual image quality is poor; and secondly, Willets had the common symptom of making the film very high-contrast and very dark. Loads of Brickfilmers do it, and it really does not look good.

However, after the unimpressive opening, the rest of the film was enjoyable. Quite what it was trying to say (if anything) was lost on me, but it was fun to watch and some bits were well animated. I did, however, have a sharp intake of breath when I saw the infinite-white-expanse background used. Luckily, it didn't last long.

The Afterlife Experience is a silent film, which is nice and calming but really does not help with the emotions our main character is going through. Another thing that was confusing was this: at the start of the film, it seems that the man has a very cold relationship with his wife. She does not seem to show affection to him. Yet, at the end of the film, they love each other. I understand that I misinterpreted the start of the film, but that is not my fault. Some dialogue would have helped oh so much!

So, is this film a contender for the Avant-Garde prize? Perhaps. More so than The Magician - it's interesting, surrealist and original. But is it the best Brickfilm I've ever seen? Not so much.


~John