Spoilers ahead! TW: Suicide, Depression
Many of us wish that there was a second chance for everything: a chance to go back and relive certain moments of our lives with the power of hindsight. Perhaps then we would notice the little things that seemed so insignificant at the time.
Alas, life is not so fair. But, one of the many super powers of cinema is the ability to re-watch a life knowing how it ends. The 2022 coming of age drama, Aftersun, proves that a second watch is often more powerful than the first, especially when the emotional turmoil of a characters concludes in devastation.
If you didn’t read the disclaimer at the top, here it is again. MAJOR spoilers ahead. You have been warned.
Aftersun presents the memories that Sophie has of her last holiday with her father Callum through a series of idealised moments. She tries to piece together the father she had with the man who was then absent for the rest of her childhood. We initially only see the memories as they were, a happy 11-year-old on holiday with her father, but as the film draws to its conclusion, it is revealed that Sophie is now a woman, and a mother of her own child, reflecting on the last memories she has of the allusive Callum.
What is so powerful about this film, though, are the seemingly innocent moments that adult Sophie chooses to hone in on. Things that, to a child, would have meant nothing. Now they mean everything. The core of the piece is the camcorder that they took with them, capturing these moments often from Sophie’s perspective. She then, as an adult, watches these back to analyse every detail and to ask herself; why didn’t I see what was going on?
In hindsight, she knows of her father’s depression. The film beautifully alludes to her father’s disappearance/suicide by having him walk through a set of doors to a dark room that she has been attempting to pull him from in confusing sequences throughout the last hour and a half. He turns away and is sucked into the black. By the end of the film we know what Sophie knows.
This is what makes the second watch so powerful.
The best way to describe this is to hone in on some of those moments that clearly rattle around Sophie’s brain constantly.
One such moment is actually how the film starts, a clip on a camcorder pointed towards Callum on the balcony of their holiday apartment. This clip is used again later on in the film, creating a sense that Sophie has watched it many times over; beating herself up for what her 11-year-old self innocently asked her dad. She points the camera to a tired looking Callum and simply asks, “When you were 11 what did you think you’d be doing now?” At the time, it was a question from a child to her dad, but knowing the emotional turmoil that he was facing she looks back and regrets ever asking. Callum is clearly not where he wants to be in life. He apologises constantly for his lack of money and drinks heavily to get through each evening. The answer he wanted to give was probably something along the lines of “Not this.” But he simply brushes the question aside and Sophie laughs.
Throughout the film Callum is practising Thai Chi. This is something that at first glance is quite funny, and not something that should be taken that seriously. Sophie constantly laughs at his silly moves, even joking down the phone to her mum that “Oh my god, he’s doing some weird slow motion ninja moves”. It is only after you have watched his decent into depression and have discovered his eventual fate that this action becomes far less silly. He is simply finding anything that he thinks may help him survive. In fact, it wasn’t until my third watch that I noticed the huge pile of books that he owned on the practise of Thai Chi. This, along with his constant encouragement of Sophie to get involved, creates a picture of a man desperate to find something that will help with his mental health issues. Without this knowledge, he is just a silly man doing some silly moves.
Another way in which Aftersun captures the pain of hindsight is through its use of music. For me, songs will constantly have memories attached to them and these can often change. What was once your favourite song can be quickly changed to one of sadness as relationships change. I have so often wished to go back to a time where I loved a song before events changed what it meant to me. This pain is, again, apparent in the second watch of this film. Two musical moments stand out. The first is of Sophie singing alone on karaoke night as Callum is feeling too low to duet with her. He sits nursing his drink as she stands alone singing a rendition of Losing My Religion. This is a very upsetting scene as Sophie begins to see the darker side of her father’s struggle. The poignancy of that song is immense. Watching for a second time you can see the deliberate use of the lyrics “Oh no I’ve said too much” and “That’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion” so clearly, relating back to her careless way of talking as a child and to her losing faith in her father. While literally on stage in the spotlight. At the time she was just singing a song, but adult Sophie looks back at that moment with so much pain. The first time we watch this moment it is simply uncomfortable and sad, through a second watch we feel the poignancy so strongly.
The other song that hold so much weight is David Bowie’s Under Pressure that is played at the end as adult Sophie tries to drag the memory of her father from a dark room that appears to be some sort of rave. As previously mentioned, throughout the film there are snippets of this strange setting with Callum dancing under flashing lights. There will be a scene back at the holiday and then suddenly is is of a woman (who we later learn is Sophie) dragging Callum out of a crowd. These scenes are so confusing during the first watch that it is tempting just to ignore them and assume that they will be explained later on. Once we know that this room is where he disappears to, the moments act as a constant reminder of what is to come for the future of their relationship. It is almost as if Sophie cannot think about that holiday without also thinking of the pain of losing her dad. The song that plays as she tries to save him, Under Pressure, is so relevant and as soon as I heard it playing the second time around I couldn’t help but cry. The song had a memory attached to it now. The memory of losing a father.
While Aftersun is a perfect example of a film that proves the pain of hindsight and longing to go back and change your reaction based on what you now know, this is a phenomenon that is apparent in most stories we see. It is an emotion so true to life, and that is what makes this film so difficult to watch. We have all been Sophie in one way or another, wishing we could go back and hug that person a little tighter or tell our younger selves that everything will be ok.
Sophie longs for what we all do; a simple second chance.