Summary
The director Charlotte Wells offers us a morose autobiographical story where point of view, subtlety and dead times combine against her intention to convey the protagonist's nostalgia for a lost father and paradise and the inevitability of not having understood him on time. A film where the tensions between child and adult perspectives, between naivety and understanding, between experience and loss are only latent.
Review
A woman recalls vacationing with her father at a Turkish spa when she was 11 years old.
Aftersun is an unfortunate conjunction of four topics widely covered by fiction: the autobiographical, the point of view, the subtlety and dead times.
When a creator or creator faces a story with autobiographical elements, there is always the risk of falling into narcissism, when the memories invoked and especially the way of exposing them, are only interesting for the one who writes or films them and the nostalgia they generate is not produce resonance with the reader/spectator. Not everyone is Annie Ernaux, Elena Ferrante or Woody Allen or Steven Spielberg or even Joanna Hogg, to go to a more related style. And Charlotte Wells clearly isn't.
With respect to the point of view, the director and screenwriter of this debut film narrates from the perpective of an adult who rescues her memories as a child, but maintaining a nostalgic and cut-out look as a child and perhaps filling in some gaps related to the reality of a loving father, very young but hiding a malaise and whom he had not seen for a long time; a discomfort that does not take long to emerge on the surface of a placid coexistence. These tensions between child and adult perspectives, between naivety and understanding, between experience and loss can always be interesting. But this is not the case. Perhaps the strobe lights of the adult Sophie dancing represent that fragmented rescue of the past where tensions do not consolidate. Aftersun. A succession of vignettes about a more or less placid everyday life is not enough (such as applying sunscreen or post-sunscreen, the Aftersun of the title).
And it is the point of view and the self-imposed clipping that are also linked to subtlety and idle times. There are innumerable examples of subtle stories with dead times, but at the same time powerful. But this is not the case. The succession of placid vignettes of that stay in the hotel in the 90s, seasoned with the inevitable home videos, try to rescue a lost paradise with weak ominous shadows that immerse the viewer in a slow and at times frankly soporific story.
Frankie Corio naturally composes a charming girl Sophie and Paul Mescal (the handsome beach attendant in The Dark Daughter) at 26 perhaps looks too young for the young father who nevertheless composes sensitively.
The director Charlotte Wells offers us a morose autobiographical story where point of view, subtlety and dead times combine against her intention to convey the protagonist's nostalgia for a lost father and paradise and the inevitability of not having understood him on time. A film where the tensions between child and adult perspectives, between naivety and understanding, between experience and loss are only latent.
Review
A woman recalls vacationing with her father at a Turkish spa when she was 11 years old.
Aftersun is an unfortunate conjunction of four topics widely covered by fiction: the autobiographical, the point of view, the subtlety and dead times.
When a creator or creator faces a story with autobiographical elements, there is always the risk of falling into narcissism, when the memories invoked and especially the way of exposing them, are only interesting for the one who writes or films them and the nostalgia they generate is not produce resonance with the reader/spectator. Not everyone is Annie Ernaux, Elena Ferrante or Woody Allen or Steven Spielberg or even Joanna Hogg, to go to a more related style. And Charlotte Wells clearly isn't.
With respect to the point of view, the director and screenwriter of this debut film narrates from the perpective of an adult who rescues her memories as a child, but maintaining a nostalgic and cut-out look as a child and perhaps filling in some gaps related to the reality of a loving father, very young but hiding a malaise and whom he had not seen for a long time; a discomfort that does not take long to emerge on the surface of a placid coexistence. These tensions between child and adult perspectives, between naivety and understanding, between experience and loss can always be interesting. But this is not the case. Perhaps the strobe lights of the adult Sophie dancing represent that fragmented rescue of the past where tensions do not consolidate. Aftersun. A succession of vignettes about a more or less placid everyday life is not enough (such as applying sunscreen or post-sunscreen, the Aftersun of the title).
And it is the point of view and the self-imposed clipping that are also linked to subtlety and idle times. There are innumerable examples of subtle stories with dead times, but at the same time powerful. But this is not the case. The succession of placid vignettes of that stay in the hotel in the 90s, seasoned with the inevitable home videos, try to rescue a lost paradise with weak ominous shadows that immerse the viewer in a slow and at times frankly soporific story.
Frankie Corio naturally composes a charming girl Sophie and Paul Mescal (the handsome beach attendant in The Dark Daughter) at 26 perhaps looks too young for the young father who nevertheless composes sensitively.