AFTERSUN

The structure of this film is simple enough - it's about 11-year old Sophie's holiday in a Turkish resort with her father Calum, who has separated from her mother.

We experience the holiday interspersed with bits of footage taken by Sophie on a miniDV camera, and also with some odd dreamlike sequences where adult Sophie is in a crowded rave, trying to get close to Calum (who hasn't aged).

At first I thought this film was going to be about child abuse, but quickly it became apparent that this wasn't where the film was heading.  Instead it gradually emerges that Calum is rather unhappy, in fact depressed.  There are poignant moments in the film where Sophie senses her father's unhappiness and attempts to comfort him in some way.

Although nothing terribly dramatic happens in the film, I found it riveting thanks to the excellent performances by Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio, who have a lovely chemistry, and to the way the writer and director Charlotte Wells weaves a kind of spell through the accumulation of small details.

Towards the end of the film we see a little of the adult Sophie (but fortunately not enough to break the spell) - we realise she has been looking at the film footage and remembering her father before (we presume) he committed suicide.

There's a final dance sequence between father and daughter which is devastatingly sad.

And there's also a karaoke sequence which is my second favourite in film (after that in 'Lost In Translation').

Highly recommended.

RATING: ✓✓✓ Cancel All Arrangements

 

PS:  Subsequent to viewing the film I listened to an episode of the 'MUBI Podcast' in which the director is interviewed.  It's a short but incisive interview which covers inter alia the use of music in the film, the theme of denial, how the setting of the holiday hotel relates to the director's childhood, why the film resonates with younger people, and to what extent the film is autobiographical. Check it out!