I got to see Aftersun finally this weekend and was blown away. Not only one of the very best films of the 21st century, so far, but one of my favourite films of all time.
Aftersun is set in a particular place and time, a time that feels quite strange to us now, a time with no cellphones and digital distractions.
It’s not that there is no technology – there’s a camcorder that proves to be very important and kids bond over arcade video games – but for better or worse the characters are with each other. They’re present. Until they’re not.
Photo: SARAH MAKHARINE
It's the turn of the 21st century and eleven-year-old Sophie is taking a holiday to Turkey with her dad Calum. Calum and Sophie are Scottish (from Edinburgh) but Calum no longer lives with them, he’s trying to make something happen for himself in England. But this week together is important to them both.
Calum, played with astonishing grace by Academy Award nominated Paul Mescal, is a loving father and even signs off his calls to Sophie’s mother with “I love you”, something that Sophie notices. In fact, she notices a lot – she’s at that age – but there are connections she can’t make, something that continues to trouble grown-up Sophie, through whose emotional memories the story is told.
For the first few scenes of the film, Calum is often slightly out of frame or out of focus or shot from behind or in a mirror, emphasising that these are Sophie’s memories and that like all memories they are incomplete, a puzzle that continues to be put together over time.
But then are sections when Calum appears full frame and face on, often in scenes when Sophie isn’t present. Does that mean he is clearer to her in her imagination than in her memories?
The way the film expresses time – as non-linear – everything hazily accessible all at once is so beautifully handled. It’s not metaphysical but it is mesmerising. The storytelling requires our understanding that times passed and is passing but it doesn’t rely on simple techniques like flashbacks or voiceover. We just travel with it, we are carried.
Shot on grainy 35mm by Gregory Oke, whose previous work, like editor Blair McClendon, I am unfamiliar with, is beautiful.
The Turkish heat, the water, the skin tones – all beautiful. I haven’t felt like this about a film since Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight blew me away six or seven years ago.
As Simon Morris pointed out in his interview with Charlotte Wells, a lot of this is down to the casting and I would say especially the casting of young newcomer Frankie Corio as Sophie.
Both of these characters are on powerful and life changing journeys and you can read all of the alternating confidence and confusion on her face as the week goes on.
If this is the future of British filmmaking or independent medium budget filmmaking generally, bring it on.
And it’s a film that does need – and I know we say this all the time but this time it really is true – to be seen on a big screen.
Sometimes subtlety has to be blown up really big, so you don’t miss it.
