Aftersun (2022)
Country: GB/US
Technical: col 102m
Director: Charlotte Wells
Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio
Synopsis:
Camcorder footage helps bring back a grown-up mother's memories of a special foreign holiday spent with her dad when she was 10.
Review:
It is an idealised relationship that the film depicts, the father ever so grown-up and calm, only once failing to make the holiday entirely child-centred; the daughter game, cheery and sensible. There is enough obscurantism in all this for a twenty-minute short, perhaps; not for a feature. The official synopsis implies that the father is dead, though leaving aside a heavily symbolic final shot this is far from clear. Do the strobe lighting effects in total darkness equate to the selectiveness of memory, the fourth dimension? As usual in 'art films', everything is left open and scenes begin and end arbitrarily (including an implied suicide). Questions nag the viewer: Where are they? How did he afford the trip? Why can he not hand her over to her mum directly? What significance is there that despite sharing a kiss with a boy, Sophie co-parents a child as a lesbian? The home movie footage, which is dire even by most family's standards, sometimes extends to the wider storytelling aesthetic, which then reverts to self-consciously composed long shots and head-to-heads. One is left with the distinct impression that it all means a great deal to Wells, but she fails to convey quite what, like a waiter lifting the lid from a tureen of soup and allowing the steam to waft tantalisingly over the diners, who must then return to their rooms and order takeout.
Country: GB/US
Technical: col 102m
Director: Charlotte Wells
Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio
Synopsis:
Camcorder footage helps bring back a grown-up mother's memories of a special foreign holiday spent with her dad when she was 10.
Review:
It is an idealised relationship that the film depicts, the father ever so grown-up and calm, only once failing to make the holiday entirely child-centred; the daughter game, cheery and sensible. There is enough obscurantism in all this for a twenty-minute short, perhaps; not for a feature. The official synopsis implies that the father is dead, though leaving aside a heavily symbolic final shot this is far from clear. Do the strobe lighting effects in total darkness equate to the selectiveness of memory, the fourth dimension? As usual in 'art films', everything is left open and scenes begin and end arbitrarily (including an implied suicide). Questions nag the viewer: Where are they? How did he afford the trip? Why can he not hand her over to her mum directly? What significance is there that despite sharing a kiss with a boy, Sophie co-parents a child as a lesbian? The home movie footage, which is dire even by most family's standards, sometimes extends to the wider storytelling aesthetic, which then reverts to self-consciously composed long shots and head-to-heads. One is left with the distinct impression that it all means a great deal to Wells, but she fails to convey quite what, like a waiter lifting the lid from a tureen of soup and allowing the steam to waft tantalisingly over the diners, who must then return to their rooms and order takeout.
Country: GB/US
Technical: col 102m
Director: Charlotte Wells
Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio
Synopsis:
Camcorder footage helps bring back a grown-up mother's memories of a special foreign holiday spent with her dad when she was 10.
Review:
It is an idealised relationship that the film depicts, the father ever so grown-up and calm, only once failing to make the holiday entirely child-centred; the daughter game, cheery and sensible. There is enough obscurantism in all this for a twenty-minute short, perhaps; not for a feature. The official synopsis implies that the father is dead, though leaving aside a heavily symbolic final shot this is far from clear. Do the strobe lighting effects in total darkness equate to the selectiveness of memory, the fourth dimension? As usual in 'art films', everything is left open and scenes begin and end arbitrarily (including an implied suicide). Questions nag the viewer: Where are they? How did he afford the trip? Why can he not hand her over to her mum directly? What significance is there that despite sharing a kiss with a boy, Sophie co-parents a child as a lesbian? The home movie footage, which is dire even by most family's standards, sometimes extends to the wider storytelling aesthetic, which then reverts to self-consciously composed long shots and head-to-heads. One is left with the distinct impression that it all means a great deal to Wells, but she fails to convey quite what, like a waiter lifting the lid from a tureen of soup and allowing the steam to waft tantalisingly over the diners, who must then return to their rooms and order takeout.