Home Video: Charlotte Wells' 'Aftersun'

It's okay to not be okay.

A24

By B. Lee

Quick Introduction: Hi, my name is B. Lee, or just B. I help with the social media stuff for Film Daze, mainly promoting our work but low-key just posting about Wong Kar-wai on Twitter (refuse to call it X), haha. Home Video is our new column, but it has two parts: one side (A side) for insightful longer-form reads on film/media available on home video, and then my side, the B side.

My writing will be more casual, personal, and briefer than our usual published work. The best way to describe this is just fleshed-out Letterboxd diary entries. But I earnestly hope this column inspires you to watch more or at least think more about what you do watch.

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I almost drowned once. During a spring vacation, I was on a boat on the bay of Miami, and my friends decided it would be a good idea to jump off the ship and swim to a mini island just far enough to make you wonder if it was possible. The swim took more effort out of me than I thought, and after 15 minutes of walking around, they decided to swim back…I was still recovering from the first swim. The closer I swam to the boat, the further it was out of reach. My body ached, and my energy rapidly left my body. Without anything to hold on to, I would stop and let myself sink to save energy. The ocean was deep enough that I couldn’t touch the bottom, and dark enough not to see what was underneath the surface. I eventually got close enough to the boat to have a float tossed to me and climb back up, but years later, I still think about the what-if.

Watching Aftersun, Charlotte Wells’ feature film debut starring Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, and Celia Rowlson-Hall, made me think about my near-death experience, depression, and how life can sometimes be like swimming in an ocean. There is a lot to relate to in this film. If you lived long enough, it is easy to see yourself in Calum Patterson (Mescal) while also being able to reflect on your youth via his daughter, Sophie Patterson (Corio). As the film progresses, each day and night showing their time together on a Turkish vacation, a lingering feeling of uneasiness is brought to light through Sophie, unaware of what her dad is dealing with.

Don't you ever feel like... you've just done a whole amazing day and then you come home and feel tired and down and... it feels like your bones don't work, they're just tired, and everything is tired. Like you're sinking. - Sophie

Calum is sinking, yet he earnestly does his best to keep swimming through life and provide a memorable vacation for his daughter, but the tides of life are wearing him down. A decent number of words are said in the film. Still, the unsaid is the loudest: the quiet moments, the actions between them, and what they do when alone, like the scene where everyone wishes Calum happy birthday, only later to transition to him crying alone in bed. We see Calum letting himself sink and give in to the ocean during his alone time, only to come back up and breathe once with his daughter again.

Like adult Sophie (Rowlson-Hall), we, the viewers, study the memories she has of her father trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together that could never be completed because, like Sophie, we will never understand Calum completely. It is implied that the older Sophie became and the more she viewed the videos of their time together, the more her memories and perception of her father began to change. At the film’s beginning, Sophie thinks her dad is weird due to her child-like innocence, but it is clear by the end that adult Sophie believes differently.

Throughout the film, dreamlike scenes set in a rave, depicting Adult Sophie trying to reach her father, take place. We see Calum moving and dancing throughout the rave, unable to hear or see Sophie. These moments serve as the film’s subconscious, feelings just below the surface, subconscious feelings that led Sophie to watch the videos she made with her father and Wells, making this film. As a viewer, it is hard to make out all of the details due to its abstractness until the film’s climax. During this moment, Calum and Sophie enjoy their last night on vacation as they take what could be considered their final dance”. At this moment, Afterun’s subconscious is the clearest and the loudest. We see adult Sophie’s frustration, raw emotion, and love for her father come to light as she finally embraces him in the rave, only to be separated again.

It was this scene that resonated with me the most. Feelings of depression, love, hopefulness, and despair all wrapped together. We aren’t one thing; many versions of us define who we are. And as time progresses and memories alter, all that is left are feelings. I believe Wells made this film to bring these feelings to life. Like Sophie, I am sure we will rewatch these scenes, trying to understand the characters depicted and our feelings the first time we watched Aftersun.

As someone who relates to Calum, I want to convey that depression sucks. It makes no sense. The solutions are always visible to those furthest away from the suffering. When waves of depression hit, sometimes all we can do is stay afloat, remind ourselves that we are who we are, and keep swimming towards a direction that makes sense. June is not only Pride Month but Men's Health Awareness Month too. Yet no matter who you are, I want to say it’s ok not to be ok. Let yourself sink if you must, but remember to come back up.

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Leaving behind two songs that have been on my mind lately that tie into my emotions, watching and writing about Aftersun.