Aftersun [DVD]

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Plaudits to editor Blair McClendon, who juxtaposes scenes and images in almost hyperreal, dreamlike fashion, conjuring a magical space in which time seems to bend emotionally.

But in this case, i need a strong imagery, deep meanings, substance over style, beautiful cinematography etc.A teenage girl (Sophie) and her father (Calum) journey to a seaside resort in Turkey for a brief but momentous vacation. While it can make for a frustrating first viewing, the clarity that comes with the film's final shot suddenly puts everything into perspective and I felt an overwhelming flood of emotion for the two central characters. Yet Aftersun is constructed as a very personal recollection, filtered through a haze of memory and imagination by the now-adult Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) looking back on things she didn’t really understand at the time.

I wish I could say the same for myself, though; I often felt that I was being tasked to construct a narrative for the picture myself, based, essentially, on merely what was being shown to me, material that frequently comes across as underdeveloped and open to an array of interpretation in terms of both story line and character development.Sophie re-examines a vacation she had with her father some twenty years earlier using a video tape recorded by her father.

Clothes, colours and music combine to create a vivid sense of time and place, and there’s a haunting, ambiguous closing sequence. The viewer is invited to join the dots on what has happened between the two timelines and there are several clues that help. And if anything, especially reading all kinds of reviews that used the word 'vulnerability' to describe what her father seemed uncomfortable with. The film's central irony is that in this rare extended visit the young girl proves to have the poise, character and maturity of an adult, while her father reveals the weak, troubled helplessness of a child.As a world of adolescence creeps into view, beyond her eye Calum struggles under the weight of life outside of fatherhood.