Given the 2013 Rhidian Brook novel from which it is derived was intriguing and irritating in equal measure, there was little surprise in finding THE AFTERMATH (Dir James Kent, 108 minutes), to be a mixture of perplexing and pedestrian.
Set among the bomb-battered ruins of 1946 Hamburg, a city pulverised by the RAF during the latter-stages of World War Two, at the end of the conflict it lay within the British Zone of Occupation. Rachel Morgan (Kiera Knightly) arrives to join her husband Lewis (Jason George) – a senior British Army Officer in the area – and together they move into a grand, spacious house on the outskirts of Hamburg, requisitioned from wealthy German architect Stefan Lubert (Alexander Skarsgard).
Along with his teenage daughter, Lubert is given permission to continue living in the property (although confined to the attic) by Colonel Morgan as he attempts to foster good relations with the previous occupants – part of the process in establishing the British Army as a liberating rather than conquering force.
Here the film goes one up on the novel as Clark plays Colonel Morgan as a decent, if somewhat emotionally detached man – yet an altogether more sympathetic figure than the General Melchett-type figure he resembles in the book.
Burdened by his dual responsibilities for maintaining order in the city and assisting with on-going investigations into former Nazi party members, Morgan abandons his beautiful but emotionally fragile wife in the solitude of their isolated dwelling. While he appears in denial to the tragedy blighting their marriage, she is consumed by grief and initially adopts the notion – widespread amongst the Allies at the time – of the Germans not being sorry for starting the war, just sorry they had lost it.
Alone with her heartache Rachel comes to discover Stefan is also in mourning for a loved one lost to the war, their shared sense of loss and loneliness resulting in a cathartic sexual liaison that develops into a love affair – leading ultimately to them devising a future life together.
While ‘The Aftermath’ does not address a key question raised by Brook of whether the Allies were indeed conquerors or liberators, it at least avoids an annoying habit of the novel that whenever the British Army are described in unflattering terms they are referred to as ‘English’ – which says more about the authors’ perspective than actual fact, the occupants of post-war Hamburg highly unlikely to distinguish between the English, Scottish, Welsh or whoever among the British Army, seeing them all merely as ‘Tommies.’
This point is made, perhaps inadvertently, by ruthless, hard-nosed British Army Intelligence Officer Burnham (Martin Compston) – the character he plays being a Scotsman.
Despite some excellent period detail and decent performances from Knightly, Clarke and Skarsgard, ‘The Aftermath’ is often a staid, soulless film that never quite delivers either as an historical drama or doomed romance. Set against the ruination all around them, the allusion of Rachel and Stefan being in their own state of aftermath from personal tragedies is not convincing enough to raise the piece above the superficial.
The railway station scene preceding the rushed, perfunctory ending is reminiscent, but in no way comparable, to that of ‘Brief Encounter.’ Made the year before ‘The Aftermath’ is set, there may be the occasional similarities in theme yet differences between the two films abound.
Seventy-odd years on ‘The Aftermath’ may have colour, nudity and digitally re-created scenery, but ‘Brief Encounter’ wins hands down for nuance, engagement and resonance.
NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller available as an Amazon Kindle Book.
