Aftersun gay
Aftersun ()
I had high hopes for this movie, but it was a bit disappointing. It is a small film with a lot of potential, typically British also in terms of realism in the theme, simple characters, and an unadorned finish. Wells has a keen eye for creating a stunning dynamic between father and daughter in a subtle and actually elusive way. In doing so, she shows a talent that few are given.
The problem, however, is in the first half which was downright boring and uninteresting. Only retroactively undertake you see the usefulness of the build to shape the special dynamics, but it's too late; the first rule of film is that it should captivate. Here she actually falls into the trap that often appears as the flip side of the coin in 'typical' British films as described above: a lot of rawness, but too little interest to justify that the viewer has to digest so much subcutaneous drama.
In the second part, things gradually get more interesting, both in terms of story and cinematography, and Wells shows her talent. The pace quickens, there is more to experience cinematically, a
Humanizing The Vacuum
While plenty of films have limned the erotic overtones of mother-son (White Heat, The Manchurian Candidate, Murmur of the Heart) and father-daughter relationships (Voyager, Somewhere, Leave No Trace) they have rarely done so with the delicacy, lightness, and wit of Aftersun. British writer-director Charlotte Wells avoids camp like a dead animal on the road and tiptoes around stuffiness fond a drunk at a ballet. Credit goes to a script that allows Wells the lacuna necessary for her camera to capture rich, suggestive moments of intimacy. Also to newcomer Frankie Curio and Paul Mescal (the boyfriend/girlfriend in Normal People) who inhabit the daughter and father with the specificity with which vague people we glimpse on common transportation and in cafes present themselves to our gaze.
From the oversaturated, ill-defined lighting and aspect ratios of a camcorder and the blobby pathos of Blur&#;s &#;Tender&#; blasting diegetically from the common areas, Wells wants audiences to get comfortable with the late s again. Aftersun cuts between the Tony Blair era
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Really, spoilers! Look away now!
I’ll put my theory plainly: Calum is gay or bisexual, and he has AIDS. He knows this, and he believes he only a concise amount of period to live. He hasn’t told anyone – not his ex-wife and certainly not his daughter, Sophie, because this is the 90s and there’s still a deep social stigma around AIDS in the UK. He dies not extended after the holiday.
There is nothing at all in the movie that absolutely confirms my theory, but every moment was written and directed to be freighted with proposal, and I believe those suggestions are congruent with my theory. But even if you aren’t watching with the intention of trying to puzzle out the movie’s essence, as I did because that’s who I am, you can’t help but notice the perception of mystery and dread that surrounds Sophie and Calum’s relationship with each other and with the people they meet. All of that is to say, I won’t get mad if you or Charlotte Wells, the director, tells me I’m wrong. It’s just that the production was obviously produced to allow for this speculation.
Why perform I think Calum isn’t str
Charlotte Wells on Aftersun, The Guardian’s best film of the year: ‘The grief expressed is mine’
Why do you think the production has had such an impact on people?
I don’t know. Cannes [where the film premiered] was such a shock. The response was wholly unexpected, both for what it was and because I had never considered what it might be. Which is a naivete I will only have this once and sense so grateful for. We had just been rushing to obtain to the finish line. We’d spoken a lot in the edit room about the film’s legibility and how it might connect with audiences, but without any thought to what that meant. We never considered what the critical response would be. I don’t think we ever thought very many people would see the film, which was a reasonable expectation.
Does it communicate to an audience hunger for films that aren’t too prescriptive?
That would be nice if that were true. One thing that struck me was the second we finished screening in Cannes, this young man came up to me and shared his own and his mother’s encounter with depression. And it was so striking.
The film is cer