"Aftersun" (2022) Directed by Charlotte Wells #independentfilm #movies #reading

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.

The above two paragraphs are taken from my spoiler free review of "Aftersun" I originally penned and published to my Medium blog site on 24th September 2022 and which can be read in full and for free via my Substack blog site linked immediately below:

https://ramblingmusings666.substack.com/p/aftersun-2022-a8cbfc134ee

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