‘You must kill Kate Bush!” The order is given on a planet far, far away. And so begins the odyssey at the centre of this trippy, erotic sci-fi fantasy, a film that looks like a horny music video from the 80s, neon-lit and smothered with glitter, the screen filled with erect nipples in quantities not seen since the early seasons of Game of Thrones. It’s French, of course, directed by underground film-maker Bertrand Mandico with such loopy abandon I could almost forgive him the film’s obscenely indulgent two-hour-plus running time.
Kate Bush is not the Kate Bush. Her full name is Katarzyna Buszowska (Agata Buzek), and she’s a Polish outlaw on a post-Earth colony in space populated by women. (The men all died soon after arrival.) Kate Bush has one hairy arm (as furry as a werewolf’s), black pointy fingernails and a third eye in her, erm, vagina. She’s also possessed of an otherworldly beauty: imagine David Bowie, Tilda Swinton and Patti Smith fed through one of those facial morphing apps.
The story makes about as much sense as you would expect. Kate Bush seduces a stroppy teenager, Roxy (Paula Luna), into saving her from execution. As punishment, Roxy is banished with her mother (Elina Löwensohn), and ordered to hunt down Kate Bush. But forget about the plot, which is a mere backdrop to the psychedelic planetary wildness Mandico has dreamed up. I could fill pages with the deranged details: the hairy caterpillar cigarettes that wriggle as Roxy smokes them; the male android that instead of a penis has tentacles like long flaccid fingers; a hot tub filled with erotic goop.
After Blue is a preposterous film, easy to ridicule. But it’s surely already halfway to cult classic status – destined to play midnight slots, watched by students smuggling bottles of red wine into the cinema under their coats.
• After Blue (Dirty Paradise) is released on 7 October in cinemas and on digital platforms.
