PROVOKR Pick: The Aftermath
Knightley and Skarsgard In The Aftermath's Love Triangle
The Aftermath is a revelation. This is a lush period drama set against post World War ll Hamburg. Hamburg was fire bombed to the ground by the Allies and had more bombs dropped on it in one night than London did in all of the War. The story is painted against the ruin of lives, of a city, and of immense personal loss. Keira Knightley‘s and Alexander Skarsgard‘s characters fall into a wonderful, sexy and illicit affair. She is British and he is a German architect whose stately country mansion the British couple Keira Knightley’s Rachel Morgan and her husband Colonel Lewis Morgan’s Jason Clarke requisition. They decide to allow the architect Stephen Lubert and his daughter to stay on in the roomy house or they will be sent to the camps. That’s when the sexual tension starts. The Colonel is called away one too many times and Rachel and Lubert begin to fall for each other.
The film delivers on so many levels and you can feel the loss of each of the three lead characters and the need to connect again to life and not death. It is also an investigation of post War tensions between the victorious and the defeated and the anger and hatred still dwelling just under the surface that frequently is bursting through by actions by both the British and the Germans in tragic consequences. The author of the novel and co-writer of the screenplay, Rhidian Brook tells the story from his own family’s history.
