Aftersun (2022) — Read Along
The unreliability of the persistence of memory
Originally first watched and my thoughts penned and published in late September 2022, my spoiler free review is now paired with my Youtube channel reading of my review recorded exactly a year later.
I can’t recommend this film highly enough to you and I hope my spoiler free take may persuade you to dive into this melancholic masterpiece sometime.
“Aftersun” is a perplexing film to categorise or label which is perhaps the first of many compliments heading their way to feature length debut filmmaker Charlotte Wells. On the surface it’s a stereotypical representation of a cheap late 1990’s “package holiday” to Turkey (with a brilliant era inspired soundtrack including Catatonia, Blur and Deacon Blue) and of a young father and his 11 year old daughter holidaying together away from living apart back home in Scotland. But via the medium of a video camera and jolting flash forwards into glimpses of a present time/future, we have an uncertainty to go with the unreliability of memory, and what constitutes a memory. Is the memory complete or fragmented and is it reliant upon photographs or the video camera in the hands of a melancholic and distracted Dad or his inquisitive, effervescent daughter?
Written and directed by Charlotte Wells in association with Screen Scotland, the National Lottery and the British Film Institute (BFI), the second compliment I’ll pay Charlotte is her creation, if it resonates with you, will demand further re-watches as there’s a multitude of interpretations that can be layered across this strangely endearing film. I intend to re-watch again relatively soon but wanted this “immediate reaction” piece to be just that, a personal instant reaction and via the medium of my scribbled in the dark notes! The film appears in three blended segments (scraps of video camera footage, the unrecorded memories of the holiday itself and jarring leaps forward to the present day) and I certainly need to see these again in particular as I interpreted these jumps into frenetic dancing at a late 1990’s era type “Rave” club to be somewhat symbolic both of the father’s deteriorating mental health as well as perhaps an early death and a reason for the melancholic sense of loss that surrounds the film. The snippets of footage from the video camera demonstrate an obvious air of playing and acting to the camera whilst the majority of the film jars against the memory contained within this non-human machine.
This tender tale has two tellers and here are your principal players:
Francesca/Frankie Corio is remarkable as the mischievous 11 year old Sophie going through the awkward motions of growing up whilst acting somewhat older than her tender years. Shy and happy within the company and re-connection bond with her eccentric Dad, the freedom of the holiday around her clearly sparks a wide open look at the world around her as well as a the world she’s going to rapidly grow up in. The brilliance of Corio’s performance resides within her shrugs of resignation at her Dad’s sporadic outbursts and subsequent apologies juxtaposed with the love and care shown (but brilliantly not outwardly acknowledged or displayed) for her Dad’s foibles, eccentricities and handling of his delicate mental health. It’s never openly discussed, but through the smiles and excitement of being on holiday with his young daughter, Paul Mescal’s performance as Calum masks the insecurities, anxieties and stress he’s going through. There’s an unexplained cast on a broken wrist, the stress relieving cigarette on the hotel balcony on the first night of the holiday and particularly the Tai Chi exercises regularly employed that only seemingly delay the inevitable. What also immediately impressed me were the touches and nuances that underpinned Mescal’s simmering performance and of a father’s love for his daughter, but also a distanced lack of care or attention and lost in his own thoughts. I have a theory that connects this behaviour and brilliant acting portrayal with my inkling that death plays a huge part within the enveloping melancholia, but to expand upon it would just veer into outright spoiler territory and that’s never my intention within these scribblings.
I saw “Aftersun” through the prism of multiple levels: sadness, melancholia, the piecing together of memories, their unreliability or need for photographic or recorded reminders, as well as the oft repeated assertion of a young aged death. There are the distractions and lost thoughts of a troubled mental health, the film is loving, tender, sensual even and, with the high jinks holiday shenanigans clearly depicted, openly sexual undertones too.
Coming of age, the passage of life and the mythologising of a loved one through the medium of the unreliability of memory, “Aftersun” deserves repeated viewings.
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Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.