Aftersun (2021)
A reflection on Charlotte Well's coming of age drama. (Spoiler warning)
In the ‘People also ask’ section of a Google search for the film Aftersun, the first question is ‘What actually happens in the movie Aftersun?’ There are two answers to this that are true. The first being that not a whole lot happens in the film, the second being that everything happens in the film. Well’s debut feature operates in a dreamy cinematic limbo that imprints itself on the viewer’s psyche like a half-forgotten dream or memory. It is remarkable that this is a debut film from Wells considering the singular vision and directorial virtuosity on display.
Irish actor Paul Mescal plays Calum, father to 11 year old Sophie played by the young Scottish actor Frankie Corio. The first two minutes of the film establishes the visual landscape through which the viewer will travel. One of the first shots shows Calum saying goodbye to Sophie at an airport. Visually, the grainy cinematography clearly situates the time period in the early to mid 90s. We are watching the hand-held holiday video filmed by Calum - it is striking how this type of cinematography of the 90s video camera is instantly recognisable 30 years on immediately evoking a sense of nostalgia. The video is then rewound through the stages of the holiday that preceded the airport goodbye. As it is paused, a ghostly reflection comes into view on the screen - that of an adult Sophie who is replaying back her holiday memories on her TV at home. Barely visible, but present.
A third realm of abstraction is also presented in the opening shots. An adult Sophie stands motionless on a dancefloor with pulsating strobe lighting and dancing revellers all around her. This space acts as a bridge between her childhood memories of her father and her adult conception of him. The passage of time has brought Sophie now to roughly the same age as her dad in the mid 90s. The dancefloor does not seem to exist in a specific space and time but in the atemporal hinterlands of memory and existence. Her father becomes more present and prominent in subsequent sequences in this space, dancing wildly and with abandon, an attempt by Sophie to cling on to the last vestiges of his memory.
Package holidays to Turkey or Spain have become part of the mythology of many a family in the UK and Ireland, particularly in the 80s and 90s. The anticipatory bus ride to the hotel from the airport, often at all hours in the morning; accommodation looking radically different to the brochure; the construction site going on right across from your room; heady romantic dalliances with random strangers; balmy nights eating out with your family, wishing you were a member of the other family sitting across from you - the other family thinking the same. Wells captures the subtle minutiae of these experiences through flitting between the cinematography of the hand-held DV and the Arri Arricam Lite using 35 mm lenses. This choice by cinematographer Gregory Oke enabled both manoeuvrability and intimacy. The colour scheme of the film is bright and rich, many frames acting like postcards one might buy on such a holiday.
Mescal delivers an often heart-breaking performance as Calum. It is gradually revealed that he is struggling mentally - the facade dropping at times exposing the fragility and darkness lurking beneath. An anecdote shared with his daughter, detailing how his parents both forgot his 11th birthday and was grabbed by the ear while attempting to tell them, points to a troubled childhood. Another scene sees Sophie signing them up to sing karaoke, Calum becomes crippled by anxiety and Sophie sings alone on stage. The lyrics to the song ‘Losing my Religion’ becoming overtly pertinent: The lengths that I will go to/The distance in your eyes. He has a cast on his arm for the first half the film. He confesses to Sophie he doesn’t remember the injury happening. He wades into the sea at night after an argument with Sophie, a potential suicide attempt perhaps - Wells leaving it ambiguous.
The overwhelming feeling of the film however is one of love between a father and daughter. The interplay between Mescal and the remarkable Frankie Cario is beautifully executed. Calum tenderly applies sunscreen to his daughter’s skin, a protective layer shielding her from harm. In turn, Sophie applies layers of mud to her father’s back at a Turkish mud-bath, her own way of protecting her often fractured father. Despite not being with Sophie’s mother anymore, he maintains a friendly and amicable relationship post break up. This is shown through a phone call he has with his ex. Calum is a man trying his best to be a good father to Sophie, to be a good example in the midst of his own psychological torment.
Wells uses screens, lenses and reflections to explore the notion of failed memory. How reliable are our own memories in the end? Why is it we latch on to one specific detail of a certain time in our lives. The camera itself is an attempt to circumvent this aspect of memory - to truly depict what happened. Yet it is still only one version of events. One lens. Several scenes are filmed underwater in the hotel swimming pool or in the Adriatic sea - a space in which sound is muffled, movement slowed and perceptions skewed. Much like memory, water refracts, reshapes and erodes. What is left behind is significant in that it is a fragment that survives, that has been excavated from the depths of our experiences. These too are eroded by time. But we cling on and hold on.
The final sequence sees father and daughter dancing together on the last night of their holiday. Bowie and Mercury sing Under Pressure as Sophie clings on to her father tight, intimating that this may have been their last significant time spent together. The impact of the lyrics of Under Pressure coupled with the shots of father and daughter is profound. Bowie sings: It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about… Keep comin’ up with love but it’s so slashed and torn. The song could be about Calum, his great capacity for love but also his great capacity for pain, a man whose emotional radar is too strong and too much to bear. There is this momentary state of bliss where father and daughter exist together, completely and wholeheartedly together. They are their own sunscreen, their own protective layers shielding each other from their pasts and their futures, completely present together. It is these precious memories that act as our after-sun, a balm that soothes and heals the pain of loss. It is these memories that, like after-sun, remind us of what went before. They remind us of the light.
Available on Mubi.