After Fall, Winter (2011): The Celluloid Dungeon

After Fall, Winter is a 2011 drama film, written by, directed by, and starring Eric Schaeffer, along with Lizzie Brocheré.

Michael (Schaeffer) is an American writer who is borderline suicidal because he is $600,000 in debt and struggling to sell his next book. On impulse, he takes a friend’s invitation to travel to Paris for the winter holidays. He also sees a pro-domme for humiliation.

In Paris, he has a meet-cute with a much younger woman, Sophie (Brocheré). She holds two jobs, first as a pro-domme and second as a counselor for the terminally ill. Why anyone would have two such emotionally demanding jobs at the same time is beyond me. It does double-down on the idea of “pro domme as caregiver”. Her current counseling client is a 13-year-old girl, Anais, who is dying of leukemia.

Michael and Sophie have an affair, but keep a lot from each other. They never tell each other about their involvement in BDSM.

On the evening of Christmas Day, Michael tells Sophie he is spending time with his friend’s family. Actually, he calls his agent and finds out no one wants his new book. He calls up his usual pro domme, who is busy with her family, and refers him to another dominatrix. This turns out to be Sophie, who sees him through the window, waiting naked for her. Sophie puts on a full-face hood and meets with him to hear his demands, without speaking, so he doesn’t recognize her. Then she just leaves to go to the hospital where Anais is dying.

Michael goes to another pro domme, and says he wants to her to kill him. He doesn’t even have the guts to kill himself. He has to get a woman to do it for him, and possibly get her accused of murder. She wraps his face in plastic wrap and leaves him to suffocate.

Sophie takes Anais’ request to go to Michael. (Anais later dies.) She finds him apparently dead, and hangs herself to be with him in death. Michael recovers, only to find Sophie’s body hanging from a noose.

Honestly, After Fall, Winter is like a composite of the worst aspects of other movies I’ve seen in this project. It has the similar kind of older man/younger woman dynamic as Going Under and Dogs Don’t Wear Pants: a masochistic, depressed man needs emotional nurturing from a pro domme.

The fact that the film is set in Paris makes it unpleasantly reminiscent of Bitter Moon. At least that film somewhat interrogated male fantasies of woman. After plays it completely straight that Sophie would commit suicide because she thought Michael, whom she has known for at most a week or two, was dead. Never mind the idea that a dying teenager’s last wish would be for two strangers to get together.

The film’s view of masochism is pretty uncooked, too. Masochistic desire is the death drive, but also the infantile desire for the mother. The gravitational pull of Michael’s selfishness and depression is so strong that it pulls multiple women into it.

Beware any film about a middle aged man who has a passionate affair with a much younger woman in a foreign land. Be particularly wary if the actor playing the man is also the film’s writer and director.