After Hours: The kind of movie I like most

The movies I love most are those in which situations occur which do not occur usually in reality, but are scientifically possible. By this last part I mean that I am not a very big fan of horror or science-fiction. A movie, to me, does not need to have realistic situations or dialogue to be good. What happens in the movie should just be in accordance to the world the movie has created. If we want realistic situations and dialogue, I believe, we can simply go out to the pub or to school. This obviously does not mean that I can't enjoy such a movie if it is very well made. All this probably explains why my favorite filmmakers are the likes of Quentin Tarantino, The Coen Brothers,Paul Thomas Anderson,Woody Allen, etc. None of their movies are probably flawless, but their faults are because the filmmakers dare to take risks. One of the most stupid criticisms I've ever read is that the movie Juno isn't good because no teenager in real life talks that way. First of all, that's a pity. Second of all it's true. That is why it is a movie and not real life and why the movie is so good.

Anyway Martin Scorsese's After Hours is exactly the kind of movie I love. Nothing that happens to Paul Hackett is very likely to happen. But the movie is so inventive and shifts tones so effectively that it is on of the most purely entertaining and absurd movies I've ever seen.

Psul is a very normal person working as a word processor who doesn't lead a very interesting life. One night he is sitting in a pub, reading a book, when he meets a slightly strange girl,Marcy, who has read the same book. She has to go home where she lives with a friend of hers, but gives him her phone number. Later that night he calls her and he goes to her and her friends' apartment, which is more of a loft, in Soho. Her friend makes paperweights and is into SM and is the first of the many absurd characters he'll meet on this night that's only going to be weirder. After a while of cuddling and talking with Marcy, Paul realizes he doesn't have much in common with her, leaves her and goes home. At least he wants to go home. Unfortunately he has only 97 cents left and can't take the metro, because after midnight the price of a ticket is up. As a barman says to him:"After hours, there are different rules."

Stuck in Soho, trying to get home, he finds that this is a quarter where all kinds of bizarre people live and are all connected to each other. Martin Scorsese has a brilliant cameo as light operator in club who with his light constantly follows Paul. The point is made rather brilliantly that all that happens to these characters is not by God's will or by some cosmic rules, but simply because the filmmakers want it. We only fully realize this though in the brilliant and even a bit frightening last 5-10 minutes of this film. They are frightening not only because the film becomes completely absurd, but also because we realize that poor Paul has no free will whatsoever. Everything he does is determined by his creator, Martin Scorsese, because he wants to entertain us. A lot of movies have been made and a lot of books have been written which reflect similar ideas. Not much have done it this entertainingly (The movie contains big laughs) or this good. And the closing shot is brilliant. It's not Scorsese's best which is logical considering he made Taxi Driver, but it's a masterpiece. And while I previously did not like Scorsese much, he is becoming one of my favorite filmmakers after also seeing The Age of Innocence and Shutter Island. He can obviously work in many genres.