Aftersun - drama
Sophie recalls a seaside vacation she spent with her father twenty years ago when she was 13. A story of growing up, a difficult relationship for a teenager with a divorced father, first rebellion, first love and endless happiness.
This film was shot in such a way that there is a feeling of “yesterday”, when the details of the event itself have already been erased, and only its image remains. The director and cinematographer resort to shooting through reflections in shiny surfaces, as, for example, did Michelangelo Antonioni in the film Night. The sensation is enhanced for me personally when they smear their face with after-sun lotion after a day in the bright sun. There is a non-trivial transition from day to night in this evening ritual for taking care of yourself (and each other).
This unusual angle adds mystery to the film and at the same time emphasizes that this is a memory, it does not have clear outlines, but is fragile like cigarette smoke and a puff of steam from a hookah. With these art pieces, Charlotte Wells leaves questions open to the imagination. (I really liked the move with the Polaroid shot, which emphasizes the volatility of the moment and forever stops it at the same time in memory).
An unusual contrast is made between children's ignorance of life and adult inhibition of what to do next. Childhood naivety and the threshold of adulthood are on display throughout the film's running time.
Moreover, acting out the threshold of adulthood is also shown here in an unusual way: Sophie will soon become a teenager, and Callum will soon be 31, he steps over the border of thirty years into his fourth decade. On the one hand, he already has offspring, but on the other hand, there is still no exact foundation for a business, but there is another problem that is more difficult to solve than financial or from the category of relationships.
Sophie is on the verge of adolescence, she is smart and happily absorbs more and more details of life. Sophie sees relationships between adults, how they walk, play / flirt with each other, smoke. Adults can be indecisive, they can be unexpectedly responsive, as, for example, one hotel guest who gave Sophie a bracelet with which you can go everywhere and take any cocktail in the bar.
Irish actor Paul Mescal was invited to the role of the young father, who proved himself from the best side in last year's TV series Normal People, based on the novel of the same name by another young promising Irish woman, Sally Rooney. He is 26 years old in fact, and the role of a person who is learning parenthood is quite successful for him. He looked awkward for the most part, but touching too. It has been convincingly played that love for your child appears with his birth, whether you are ready for it or not. All his actions are quite formulaic, but still more sincere, he does what all the right dads do who have daughters of this age.
The whole film will hang one feeling. Not only that it shows someone's memory, but a sense of a catch. There must be something behind the sweet and touching relationship between father and daughter. And in the end, this is not shown in the most obvious way, but will have to be added up in small details, distributed throughout the film in small details, like in the pattern of a Turkish carpet.
