LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING (AFTERSUN)

 

© BBC Films 

Sometimes a film just grabs you in its first five minutes.

Once it has grabbed you, it never lets go until it finally delivers its final, devastating emotional punch.

'Aftersun' is that sort of film.

The debut feature of Charlotte Wells, it's a masterclass in subtle visual storytelling and understated acting.

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But it also takes on huge topics and addresses them in a really sophisticated way.

Frankie Corio plays Sophie, an 11 year old girl who has flown from Edinburgh to Turkey to join her dad, Paul Mescal's Calum on a resort holiday.

The film begins with camcorder footage recorded on the holiday with Sophie asking Calum questions.

The footage freezes when she asks him what he wanted to grow up to be when he was 11.

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We know watching it that Wells will probably return to this scene and that it could be a pivotal moment for the film but we don't know why.

The audience soon learns that Calum, who has a cast on his right arm, is separated from Sophie's mum.

He is also clearly very fond of his daughter. 

Sitting on a bus after being picked up at the airport, he amuses her by making fun of Sally Messham's package holiday tour guide Belinda.

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Making their way at night to their hotel, the father and daughter have to wait in reception for a member of staff to arrive.

When he does, he books them into a room with a double bed instead of twin beds like Calum ordered.

Worn out by the journey, Sophie collapses into a heap on the bed in her Heart of Midlothian football top.

Then something hypnotic happens.

While we watch Sophie snooze, Calum goes out to the porch to light a cigarette but struggles to strike a match because of his cast.

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Gregory Oke's camera doesn't budge an inch during Calum's battle with the match and cigarette.

With Sophie in the foreground and a closed sliding window acting as a barrier, we watch to the sound of her breathing during Calum's struggle.

He eventually succeeds and then starts swaying rather oddly in the dark as he smokes his cigarette.

This mise en scene is the first visual clue that not everything is as it seems.

It hints at the barriers Calum erects to hide from Sophie his own inner struggles and it sets an unsettling tone for the rest of Wells' film.

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Wells and Oke capture a series of moments from Sophie and Calum's poolside holiday.

We see both of them by the pool applying suncream, with Calum encouraging her to talk to some kids who have just arrived - only for her to fire back that they are too young and that he should go make friends with their parents.

Calum quips they are too old.

During an evening meal, the father and daughter throw food at the tour guides during a performance of 'The Macarena' and then make a run for it.

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On her first full day, Sophie also meets an English boy her age, Brooklyn Toulson's Michael while playing a motorcycle game at the resort's gaming machines.

There's an initial encounter too with older English teens, Harry Perdios' Toby and Spike Fearns' Olly at the pool table.

Calum makes awkward, polite conversation with Toby and Olly while he and Sophie take them on in a game.

With the help of film editor Blair McClendon, Wells punctures the action with fleeting, nightmarish dream sequences of the adult Sophie, played by Celia Rowlson-Hall, observing Calum dancing during what appears to be a rave.

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These set the viewer on edge as it becomes evident that all is not okay with Sophie's dad during the holiday.

It soon becomes clear we are looking at events not just through the eyes of an 11 year old but her adult self.

Viewers find themselves parsing the words of Calum for clues during snatches of conversations by the pool, at the restaurant table, the hotel room or the beach.

We learn a business venture he tried to start collapsed and that he was once engaged but that didn't materialise too.

Calum vaguely talks about starting a new business but there's no conviction to it.

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And as the camcorder scene of Sophie interviewing is repeated, we learn that he was unable to respond.

Sophie is at that stage of her life where she is absorbing a lot more than she is probably aware of.

Starting to come of age, she is fascinated by older teenagers at the resort.

She is also becoming more aware of the need to assert her independence, is more conscious of boys and of sexuality and that adds a further layer of concern for the audience, striking a chord with those who are parents.

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As the end of the holiday looms and the tension mounts, a karaoke session where Sophie ends up singing REM's 'Losing My Religion' on her own results in a father and daughter falling out.

They briefly go their separate ways as the black dog descends on Calum and he retires to the room while she hangs out with the older, binge drinking teenagers.

And over the course of a tense section of the film, there are hints of a tragedy to come.

Few films, either this year or in recent years, have been as ambitious as 'Aftersun' or as subtly devastating.

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Wells' movie bravely takes on the issues of mental health and intergenerational trauma and somehow weaves them into a compelling drama.

Produced by Barry Jenkins, her movie feels like a Scottish cousin of his Oscar winning masterpiece 'Moonlight' - sharing that same ability to step back and reflect on past events and their impact on the present.

Stylistically, the occasional use of slow motion and trance-like rave sequences are reminiscent of the discombobulating effect of the slow motion image of Naomie Harris' Paula yelling at Chiron in Jenkins' film.

For much of the film, Wells and Oke also document Sophie and Calum's holiday in a subtle observational style that is reminiscent of Lynne Ramsay's work in 'Ratcatcher'.

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The camera's focus on a hotel TV screen as Sophie and Calum sit silently on a bed is stunningly executed.

Not only is it a remarkable piece of framing but it forces the viewer to decipher other clues about Calum's state of mind as they notice the stack of Tai Chi and meditation books beside the TV he has brought for the holiday.

Calum's devotion to Tai Chi seems like an act of desperation.

The camcorder footage in the film, with its authentically out of focus moments, its indiscriminate close ups and its jerky camera movements, adds to a sense of impending doom.

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Wells skilfully traverses the territory of memory and recorded memory, of trying to decipher meaning from the past.

And thanks to Mescal and newcomer Corio's superbly natural performances, 'Aftersun' becomes one of the best examinations of mental health we have seen on the big or small screen.

It's not an easy watch but like 'Moonlight' it is mesmerising.

There's a scene where Sophie and Callum are in a Turkish carpet shop staring at an ornate carpet on the floor.

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The way Mescal stares at the carpet - especially when he hears how much it costs - is one of the best moments of acting on a cinema screen this year.

His face is laced with longing and desperation like Lamberto Maggiorani's Antonio in Vittorio Da Sica's 1946 neo realist classic 'The Bicycle Thieves' which shares the same impending sense of doom.

Wells' intelligent deployment of Blur's song 'Tender' and particularly David Bowie and Queen's 'Under Pressure' also hits hard.

These tracks blend perfectly with Oliver Coates' touching musical score.

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However it is the poignancy of the use of 'Under Pressure' and its lyrics that really leave you reeling.

Wells has directed one of the most stunning debut features of recent times.

Tender, poignant and undoubtedly harrowing, it packs more genuine emotion into its 101 minutes than 100 superhero movies.

It also sets a very high bar for the next project Wells takes on.

If she comes through with another movie as subtle, stirring and thought provoking as 'Aftersun,' we really will be witnessing the emergence of a very important visual storyteller.

('Aftersun' was released in the UK and Ireland on November 18, 2022)