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WWith a surname like that, perhaps a lot was expected from this extraordinary first-time feature director. Charlotte Wells’ entertaining debut movie has captivated audiences around the world, starting with its premiere at Critics’ Week in Cannes this May, where I saw it for the first time. It is a film about the overwhelming power of the past and its terrible, tragic inaccessibility; A film about a father-daughter relationship takes on a poignant new intimacy the moment it has to let go. The title beautifully understands something when it goes past, when its heat cools and when some balm is needed.
Afterson stars Paul Maskall and nine-year-old newcomer Frankie Corio as Callum and Sophie: a Scottish man who, sometime in the 90s, goes on a package holiday trip with his child, whose mother he is now estranged from. It’s a summer trip to a budget resort, a sunshine break that’s also a farewell of sorts – though Sophie doesn’t quite understand it. Maybe not even Calum. Father and daughter coexist without any discernible tension or drama. Calum has a good-natured fool around with Sophie, who turns a blind eye to her embarrassing dad-dancing at the disco. But one night Calum is wracked with guilt and an overwhelming love that he can’t show her properly.
Everything is low key and the film is allowed to unspool naturally like a deceptively simple short story. It is framed in the context of a series of flashbacks experienced by the grown-up Sophie, and Aftersun is worn to flash back childhood memories that are constantly replayed in your mind and become mysterious (like the digital video that Callum is shooting at her state. -of-the-art Sony Handycam). New meanings appear that were not there before, created by the unfolding or remembering mind and endowed with new compassion.
Conversations about what Afterson means have been interesting: to some in the United States, the fact that Callum had three alcoholic drinks at dinner with Sophie signaled something irresponsible. An Anglo-Saxon audience might not see anything particularly wrong with it. There’s also the question of whether Callum will die now, a shocking implication (for a character who is so young in the film) that makes the whole thing even more tragic.
Either way, loss – and love – together form one big thing covering many of the film’s smaller moments that traffic inexorably across the screen. Nothing too dramatic happens, and when something important does happen, it’s coldly unencumbered and unsigned. Artistry is implicit and ambiguous. Collect details; Images recur and the significance of the central relationship deepens. The film shines like a swimming pool of mystery, gaining new converts and followers wherever it is shown. Nothing deserves the “film of the year” tag more than this.
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