After An Autumn Day That Felt Like Summer is a movie that was shot on mini-DV by American director Mark L. Feinsod. It has a running time of 15 minutes, and is non-narrative or semi-narrative in nature. Although the movie was shot in 2002, it was not edited and completed until 2003.

Plot

Set in the days immediately following 9-11, it concerns Ellsworth (played by Timur Kocak), a man so traumatized by the attack on the World Trade Center that he is unable to resume a normal life afterwards. The movie begins with him staring at the hole in the skyline created by the absence of the Twin Towers as he says, in voice-over, "The old ways, out-dated before, are useless now". This then cuts to a shot of him looking at the notices of the "missing" that were posted on the side of St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village.

The next scene takes place in a restaurant as Eleanor (Nicole Severine), Ellsworth's girlfriend, is having lunch. Ellsworth joins her and she reacts angrily, guessing correctly that he called out sick again because he couldn't bear the thought of going back to work. The two argue about 9-11, with Ellsworth arguing that President Bush has handled the situation poorly and Eleanor responding curtly, "Tell it to the victims' families." The couple kisses passionately, as Ellsworth, in voice-over, muses about the fact that stock market(s) in New York resumed trading the day after the attacks. "Is our greed greater than our sadness?" he wonders.

In the next scene, Ellsworth visits Anne (played by Anna Curtis), a beautiful and free-spirited burlesque dancer that he is having an affair with. Anne is unabashedly liberal, as opposed to Ellsworth's political uncertainty and Eleanor's conservativism. The couple kisses, lazes about on Anne's bed, and then engages in a bizarre kind of foreplay in which Anne pretends to be a sort of judge who puts Ellsworth (who personifies various right-wing figures and institutions such as George W. Bush and Enron) on a mock trial. The couple then engages in sex.

After Ellsworth has fallen asleep, Anne leaves him a key and goes to a rehearsal with the fellow members of her burlesque company. The girls change into elaborate costumes and perform a fan dance. The sequence ends with Anne, alone, changing out of her costume as somber music plays in the background.

This is followed by a scene study of a corporate office building, its impersonal interior contrasted against the heavy rain falling outside and the dramatic New York City midtown skyline (at one point, a parking garage mid-way up a skyscraper is shown, and the camera cuts to a close-up of the cars parked many stories above ground). Then, there is a single shot of the outside of the building, and the only piece of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany is shown.

The final scene shows Anne in her apartment, as Ellsworth returns. As Anne looks at him questioningly and in a less-than-welcome manner, he jokes that he has come back because "I left my condom here". Then, a knock on the door announces the arrival of Eleanor, who has followed Ellsworth to Anne's. Eleanor, furious at being cheated on, demands that Ellsworth choose between the two women. Ellsworth looks at both of them. The movie cuts to a mysterious serious of jump-cuts showing New York City traffic reflected through a window at night.

Themes

After An Autumn Day That Felt Like Summer has several themes coursing through it, the primary one being that complicated, large-scale events defy easy answers and solutions and, in fact, may not have them. This is shown via the movie's fragmented narrative, the ending during which Ellsworth either cannot or will not choose between Anne and Eleanor, and the various unanswered questions that run through it. As much as the movie seems to have any kind of stance is that, halfway through it, Anne becomes the main character, taking over from Ellsworth. Her joyous burlesque dance with her company (the real-life Bombshell! Girls) is shown in its entirety, and the movie becomes sadder in tone after the dance ends, signifying that her free-spiritedness and devotion to her art should be celebrated, because of or despite her political views.

Several times, Ellsworth mentions lack of faith in government (during his voice-over at the beginning and at lunch with Eleanor) and traditional notions of labor (with Eleanor, and also with Anne). Whereas Ellsworth seems to wallow in his uncertainty (which the movie does not seem to judge him for), both Eleanor and Anne (who may be said to represent extremes of the political spectrum) are very firm in their beliefs. The movie has many allusions and references to John Dos Passos’ U.S.A. trilogy, which bears this out.

Reception

The movie has since gained a following on the underground film scene, having played around the world and being named to Film Threat's The Ten Best Unseen Films of 2003 annual list. The Internet site also gave the movie a four-star review. It also was a part of the bill during director Mark L. Feinsod's retrospective at the Pioneer Theater in New York City in January 2005.

The movie is Feinsod's fourth, and features actors that he had previously worked with, Nicole Severine and Timur Kocak. It also features a score by Benson Sebastian (billed as Mario X.) and the song Blue Sky by Riviera.

Trivia

Anne's apartment was actually Feinsod's at the time. The cat that is present during the sex scene between Anne and Ellsworth is Oliver, Feinsod's cat. Feinsod instructed actors Timur Kocak and Anna Curtis to pretend that the cat was Anne's, so that shooting would not be disrupted every time Oliver walked into frame.

The movie was originally conceived as a politically-oriented pornographic piece that Feinsod intended on shooting with a Pixelvision. After casting Anna Curtis and seeing her perform with the Bombshell! Girls, Feinsod re-wrote the entire movie and changed an elaborate sex scene to a burlesque dance.

The window through which the traffic was shot at the end of the movie is across the street from the apartment that was used for Anne's.