Written and directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet and released theatrically in 1970, Eden And After is one of the stranger films in the filmmaker's already bizarre filmography. The beginning of the film is centered around the appropriately titled Eden Café, a coffee house that attracts a crowd of art students who seem to appreciate its anti-social sensibilities. A sign hangs on the wall encouraging patrons to ‘drink blood' which contrasts with the Coca-Cola symbols painted across the glass windows. Here these students indulge their base desires and play ‘games' with names like ‘poison' and ‘rape.'

An interruption in their oddly ritualistic playtime occurs when a man known only as The Dutchman (Pierre Zimmer) enters the café intent on teaching them a game that he learned himself during his travels to Africa. First he has a one of the art students pick up deadly sharp shards of broken glass and from there, he proceeds to heal the ensuing wounds. After this he offers ‘fear powder' to a beautiful young woman named Violette (Catherine Jourdan). From here, she ‘travels' (or at least hallucinates as much) to Tunisia where she becomes involved in some S&M play with The Dutchman and various other Eden Café denizens involved alongside her…

Demonstrating the bold use of primary color and wild locations that would make his follow up to this film, The Successive Slidings Of Pleasure, so visually arresting, Robbe-Grillet is once again more concerned with atmosphere and imagery than with cohesive storytelling. The plot, which was admittedly and obviously influenced by Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, essentially follows Violette as she tumbles down what we take to be a drug induced rabbit hole where she quite literally meets otherworldly (albeit very human) inhabitants. It's an interesting and completely bizarre take on a story that most of us are already very familiar with, but with Robbe-Grillet putting his own artisanal spin on the proceedings, in many ways it's unlike anything made before or since.

The story starts off strangely enough, with the art students getting into all manner of debauchery in the café, but it's not until things shift to Tunisia (and the scenes that take place there were shot on location) where things really start to unfold. Catherine Jourdan is quite striking here. She's got a ridiculously strong sex appeal but so too does she carry about her a distinct aura of both nativity and fragility. The camera loves her and she's frequently framed in picture perfect compositions against backdrops of striking colors obviously chosen to compliment her costumes and her natural features. It works and it works well, the narrative structure letting us witness firsthand the ‘alien' encounters that take place once she's transported, in all their scintillating detail.

Ultimately, the film is just as strange as it sounds but it's absolutely worth seeing for fans of Robbe-Grillet's style or French arthouse filmmaking in general. It moves at a reasonably good pace, offering up quite a few memorable set pieces before the film finishes up and a few decent performances as well. It may very well be an exercise in style over substance but when it's as well done and intriguing as it is here, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Video:

Eden And After looks great on Blu-ray in AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer presented in 1.66.1 widescreen (presumably the original aspect ratio for the movie as the framing looks fine here). Detail is excellent in close up shots and remains strong in medium and long distance shots as well. Color reproduction is very good here, the reds in the scene in which we see a certain character lay on a red box with the ‘Coca-Cola' logo evident in the top left and right of the frame is a good example of how the primaries really strike you here. Skin tones look perfect, they're nice and natural and never too hot and there's no evidence of noise reduction anywhere to be seen. Grain is very obvious throughout the movie but never to the point where it distracts and while a few minor specks pop up here and there, there isn't any serious print damage to complain about. Texture is strong, black levels are nice and deep and all in all the movie looks great on Blu-ray.