I spent a long time trying to track this one down, and in the end I was lucky enough to get in touch with Anders Dalgaard, who not only wrote the screenplay but also directed and edited the film. In my research I read that the production was completed, with a tiny production team and cast, in a limited set, on a micro-budget of only around £20,000. This makes what was achieved with this film - which was Dalgaard's debut feature-length piece - all the more impressive to me.
I've read mixed reviews on this film: some accusing it of pop philosophy and naïve stylings, others comparing it to Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot'. A clear parallel for me with Beckett is that Nether World is ambiguous, cyclical and often confusing but absolutely invites interpretation.
On my first watch through, I wasn't entirely sure what was happening, but the whole thing looked beautiful to me. It's full of gritty, black and white gumshoe-noir shots, and saturated, dreamlike flashbacks/flashforwards packed with intriguing symbolism reminiscent of Twin Peaks. The story and its imagery played on my mind until I watched it for a second time and started to unpick some of the themes, and unravel what I interpreted from the plot.
On one level, this is a thriller about two 'Agents' (assassins) from 'the Company' who are paired up to perform a hit together. At first, it seems like they have little in common. Old Timer (William Morgan Sheppard) is brash, cynical and jaded, whilst California (Mark Sheppard) is an idealistic young soldier, only in it for the money to support his pregnant wife. However, as time passes it becomes clear that they have a lot more in common than it first appears - literally: a shared past/future; a shared existence.
The majority of the action takes place in a literal nether-world - the liminal, chthonic space of an underground parking lot in the height of a stifling heatwave. This highlights the repeated themes of being trapped, suffocated; caught in a purgatorial loop.
The slow reveal of California starting to realize what's going on is subtly and expertly written, and stunningly performed by both of the lead actors. The repetition of footage in certain scenes is used very effectively, enhancing the theme of mistakes endlessly repeated.
Upon watching the film a second time, I noticed so much foreshadowing and so many lovely little details. California pointing the gun first at Maria, then at himself, in the first flashback sequence is an eerie prediction of their fates. There's a lot of that in Nether World - too much to explore in a brief review, but I kept noticing new details and deeper layers.
"I'm not like you," California repeats to his jaded partner.
"There's no escape from me," could be a direct response from Old Timer to that claim: I'm still not entirely sure whether he directs that to the Photographer, or to California. As time passes (although, according to the clock, no time has passed at all: another unsettling anomaly of this situation, and a further comment on how things can't help but repeat themselves) California's behaviour becomes increasingly like Old Timer's. We watch him become Old Timer before our eyes: first figuratively - with the smoking, drinking, the breakdown of his morals and marital fidelity - and then literally. As Old Timer says, "You're not hunting me. I'm hunting me." We realize that this has been a single, unreliable narrator all along, the story told from the fragmented point of view of a murderer driven mad by the mistake he replays over and over again in his mind. Finally, what was left of his younger, optimistic, self disappears completely, and he is left with what he has turned into: the abusive father he was too late to kill; he has nothing left but to finish the job. The idea of 'turning into our fathers' is lent additional gravity by the fact that the two lead actors are father and son.
This feeling of going around in circles - literally and metaphorically: the repeated motif of spiraling stairs; the repeated patterns of disillusionment and violence - is a key theme of Nether World. The action both starts and concludes with the protagonist killing himself, neatly bookending the narrative.
The process of watching this film, of figuring out what was going on, and interpreting my own meanings from it, absolutely delighted me. I'm very grateful for having had the opportunity to watch it, and I hope that one day it'll be available on public release for others to enjoy too.
I've read mixed reviews on this film: some accusing it of pop philosophy and naïve stylings, others comparing it to Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot'. A clear parallel for me with Beckett is that Nether World is ambiguous, cyclical and often confusing but absolutely invites interpretation.
On my first watch through, I wasn't entirely sure what was happening, but the whole thing looked beautiful to me. It's full of gritty, black and white gumshoe-noir shots, and saturated, dreamlike flashbacks/flashforwards packed with intriguing symbolism reminiscent of Twin Peaks. The story and its imagery played on my mind until I watched it for a second time and started to unpick some of the themes, and unravel what I interpreted from the plot.
On one level, this is a thriller about two 'Agents' (assassins) from 'the Company' who are paired up to perform a hit together. At first, it seems like they have little in common. Old Timer (William Morgan Sheppard) is brash, cynical and jaded, whilst California (Mark Sheppard) is an idealistic young soldier, only in it for the money to support his pregnant wife. However, as time passes it becomes clear that they have a lot more in common than it first appears - literally: a shared past/future; a shared existence.
The majority of the action takes place in a literal nether-world - the liminal, chthonic space of an underground parking lot in the height of a stifling heatwave. This highlights the repeated themes of being trapped, suffocated; caught in a purgatorial loop.
The slow reveal of California starting to realize what's going on is subtly and expertly written, and stunningly performed by both of the lead actors. The repetition of footage in certain scenes is used very effectively, enhancing the theme of mistakes endlessly repeated.
Upon watching the film a second time, I noticed so much foreshadowing and so many lovely little details. California pointing the gun first at Maria, then at himself, in the first flashback sequence is an eerie prediction of their fates. There's a lot of that in Nether World - too much to explore in a brief review, but I kept noticing new details and deeper layers.
"I'm not like you," California repeats to his jaded partner.
"There's no escape from me," could be a direct response from Old Timer to that claim: I'm still not entirely sure whether he directs that to the Photographer, or to California. As time passes (although, according to the clock, no time has passed at all: another unsettling anomaly of this situation, and a further comment on how things can't help but repeat themselves) California's behaviour becomes increasingly like Old Timer's. We watch him become Old Timer before our eyes: first figuratively - with the smoking, drinking, the breakdown of his morals and marital fidelity - and then literally. As Old Timer says, "You're not hunting me. I'm hunting me." We realize that this has been a single, unreliable narrator all along, the story told from the fragmented point of view of a murderer driven mad by the mistake he replays over and over again in his mind. Finally, what was left of his younger, optimistic, self disappears completely, and he is left with what he has turned into: the abusive father he was too late to kill; he has nothing left but to finish the job. The idea of 'turning into our fathers' is lent additional gravity by the fact that the two lead actors are father and son.
This feeling of going around in circles - literally and metaphorically: the repeated motif of spiraling stairs; the repeated patterns of disillusionment and violence - is a key theme of Nether World. The action both starts and concludes with the protagonist killing himself, neatly bookending the narrative.
The process of watching this film, of figuring out what was going on, and interpreting my own meanings from it, absolutely delighted me. I'm very grateful for having had the opportunity to watch it, and I hope that one day it'll be available on public release for others to enjoy too.
- James Booth
