When my local cinema rescreened Aftersun this week, I experienced things I’ve never seen a movie do. After the final scene, the entire theater remained silent. Nobody moved. Slowly, you could hear people crying, sniffing, wiping their tears. Even when the lights turned on, most people remained seated. You could palpably sense that the entire room was affected by the emotional sorcery of Aftersun.
But really, the end of this movie was only where its force began to unravel for me. In the following days, I kept reflecting on the bittersweet story of Aftersun. Over and over again, I revisited the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack, the captivating cinematography, and the poignant narrative. It’s rare that a movie hits me so deeply. It was as if Aftersun had mixed an emotional cocktail I’d never tasted before and served it with a curly straw and an umbrella.
So, what is it about Aftersun that makes us feel so deeply? What makes it such a beautifully haunting movie? Here’s an attempt to answer this question based on my obsessive engagement with Aftersun’s story, atmosphere, and cinematography.
***Spoilers below***
1. Raving Memories: ‘When You Were Eleven…’
What is Aftersun about? Essentially, it’s about 11-year-old Sophie, who goes on vacation with her 31-year-old dad, Calum. They stay at a conventional resort in Turkey, sitting by the pool, playing games, and visiting nearby landmarks. But Aftersun is also about 31-year-old Sophie, who revisits the sacred camcorder footage of that vacation as she continues to grapple with a grim reality: this seemingly innocent holiday harbored the final moments she would ever get with her dad.
The biggest reason, I think, why Aftersun is such a beautifully haunting movie is this: We, the viewers, are being put directly into Sophie’s shoes. We’re being directly confronted with the impossible tasks of grieving someone and experiencing highly conflicting emotions. Like Sophie, we re-run all the fleeting scenes after watching the movie. Like Sophie, we try to piece together Calum’s internal state despite the limited information we have. And like Sophie, we try to merge our fickle emotional experience — anger, gratitude, love — with the rather superficial sensory data of film recordings.
When discussing Aftersun’s ending with a friend, she told me that it left her feeling unsatisfied. She said, “I wanted to see what exactly happened to Calum and how Sophie processed these events. I wanted to be there for it.”
Of course, Aftersun implicitly reveals to us what happens to Calum, and the subtlety of this revelation is the whole point. We both knew that. But I found my friend’s reaction all the more moving because she had taken on the same role as adult Sophie: the role of grieving someone. Of course, every process of grief looks vastly different, but many times, it includes, as the American Psychological Association writes, “confusion, yearning, obsessive dwelling on the past, and apprehension about the future.”
That’s what adult Sophie does. We see her rewatching the recordings from the last vacation with her dad as she desperately tries to piece together why her father left, what his state of mind really was, and how she can merge her cheerful memories from childhood with her grief from adulthood. And while doing so, she projects this process onto us bystanders.
Two ways of experiencing Aftersun
I watched Aftersun with two friends, who watched the movie for the second time (I was watching it for the first time). And interestingly, the movie affected them differently than me: From the very beginning, they fought with tears, whereas I watched the movie with a child-like mind, not knowing where it’d take me. Afterward, I realized that these two modes of experiencing Aftersun correspond to Sophie’s two roles during the film.
The first time you watch Aftersun, you’re put in the shoes of 11-year-old Sophie. Not knowing the ending yet, most of the movie conveys feelings of an innocent childhood. To me, it even felt stretchy and slow sometimes, reminding me of how I perceived time when I was a child. Of course, even as a first-time watcher, you notice the growing evidence that something is going on with Calum. There’s this unsettling quality. But overall, you can still take in the beauty of the vacation. The intense sun. The glistening ocean. The crashing waves.
But then comes the second stage.
Every additional time you watch Aftersun, you’re put in the role of 31-year-old Sophie. Now that you know the ending, every scene, every memory, takes on additional weight because you know that these are the last moments that Calum and Sophie spend together. Things like the joke about the bus announcer’s failing microphone or the scene in which Calum tells Sophie that she can talk to him about anything — these moments become infinitely precious and all the more tragic.
Sophie’s (mind) camera and the meaning of the Rave
So, one reason Aftersun makes us feel so deeply is that we embody Sophie’s complex emotional journey. I would even go as far as saying that, from a narrative perspective, we only ever know what Sophie knows. We fundamentally experience the story from Sophie’s viewpoint. This implies that everything we see is either a recording of her actual camcorder or her “mind camera,” her memory.
Of course, there are quite a few scenes in which Sophie isn’t present, but we still see what Calum is doing. Calum crying alone in the dark hotel room, sneaking out to smoke a cigarette, or walking into the dark, roaring sea — what’s going on there? I like to think that these are the products of Sophie’s imagination. These scenes might simply be the gaps that Sophie needed to fill after her father’s death.
After all, Calum tries his best during the holiday to filter out sad moments and preserve happy memories. (For instance, he intentionally asked Sophie to stop recording before he told her about a painful memory from his childhood.) Sophie’s task, as an adult then, is to harmonize her happy recollections with her distressing grief.
The space where all these memories, recordings, and imaginations convolute is the Rave, a space of flashing lights where we see 31-year-old Sophie and 31-year-old Calum interact. This Rave is the room in Sophie’s mind reserved for processing her dad. In fact, that’s how Sophie sees Calum leave from the departure gate: he puts down the camcorder, turns around, and walks into the Rave. That is, he walks into Sophie’s grieving mind: the only place where he continues to exist for her.
But why a rave? Why not, say, a beach or a hotel room?
I think it makes sense that Sophie preserves Calum in this dark space of dancing people since one of their last striking memories was when they danced to “Under Pressure” at the hotel. The Rave’s flashing lights underscore Sophie’s confusion around the memories of her dad. In one flash, we see Sophie and Calum hugging and laughing. In the next, we see Sophie pushing Calum away, screaming at him.
So ultimately, Sophie is torn about how she should deal with all these complex feelings. She continually struggles to have a coherent mental image of her father. The older she gets and the more she knows what depression feels like, the more she can empathize with him. But simultaneously, she’s beginning to process all this anger, all this betrayal, all this rage.
2. Illusions of Togetherness: Do We Really Share the Same Sky?
At one point in the movie, Sophie says that she thinks it’s nice we all share the same sky. She likes how two people can stare at the same sun and how this somehow connects them, even when they’re apart. The movie’s imagery mirrors this idea as there are many shots of the sky, often filled with paragliders. (When you think about it, paragliders are literally people sharing the same sky).
And yet, as the movie progresses, we learn that this is an idealistic vision of Sophie’s early childhood. The reality is that the internal worlds of Sophie and Calum couldn’t be more different.
On the one hand, 11-year-old Sophie vibrates with possibilities and new beginnings. Repeatedly, we see her want to do things (like paragliding) only to be told that she’s too young. She constantly envies the teenagers at the hotel and how they can do all this cool stuff like drinking, kissing, and gossiping. The yellow wristbands for all-inclusive access at the resort illustrate this divide between Sophie and the other kids. Toward the end of the movie, though, Sophie receives a yellow wristband from another girl, signaling that she’s quickly growing up and facing an abundance of opportunities.
On the other hand, Calum is facing a dead-end in his life. He’s turning 31 but didn’t even think he’d make it to 30. His poor financial situation distresses him because he can’t support Sophie in the way he would like to. We see this when he tries to offer her singing lessons (in vain), when Sophie loses the diving goggles, and when he can’t buy the carpet. On top of this, he feels unable to return to his hometown, Edinburgh. And then, of course, there’s the elephant in the room: Calum’s deteriorating mental health.
So, even though from the outside it seems as if Sophie and Calum are bonding during their vacation, they’re actually drifting apart. I think we can sense this as viewers, and it’s another big reason why Aftersun makes us feel so deeply. I also think that 11-year-old Sophie can sense this divide (albeit subconsciously). There are two scenes showing this divide that I found particularly heavy-hitting.
Warmth and coldness
In perhaps one of the best shots of the entire film, Sophie sits on a chair against the wall of the warmly lit hotel room. On the other side of the wall is the cold, almost spooky bathroom, where Calum is trying to cut down the cast around his wrist.
Neither of the two knows what the other is doing. Calum asks Sophie how she’s getting on with her book (which she’s not actually reading), and Sophie asks Calum how he broke his wrist (which he can’t answer because he doesn’t really remember). Sophie then tells Calum about a time when she thought he and her mom would get married (which was a misunderstanding and never happened).
This is so representative of their connection. Both of them think they know what the other person is doing (and they do, to some extent). And yet, their respective inner lives remain sealed. They can’t break down the metaphorical wall between them. No matter how hard Sophie tries, she can’t compensate for Calum’s internal coldness with her warmth.
Happy birthday, sad birthday
On Calum’s 31st birthday, the two of them visit an ancient amphitheater. Calum climbs all the way to the top, while Sophie stays on the ground, conspiring with other tourists to sing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” for her dad. The physical distance between the two hints at their emotional divide.
Then, Sophie counts down from three to sing the song, and for a moment, we expect this cheerful scene with Calum smiling, shouting, “Thank you!” But instead, he freezes. He uses his hand to shield the sun, shadowing his face. He seems to be feeling utterly empty.
At another point in the movie, we get a glimpse of why this happened. Calum tells Sophie that, when he was her age, his dad simply forgot his birthday. What adds to this is that aging, in general, is painful for Calum. Again, he never thought he’d make it to 30, so every time he turns one year older, he’s reminded of this fact.
This scene at the amphitheater tragically shows how two people can have vastly different associations with one seemingly cheerful topic.
3. Mirages and Masks: ‘We’re Here to Have a Good Time, Eh?’
One of the visual choices that struck me most while watching Aftersun was how often we only see reflections and mirages of Calum and Sophie. In fact, when you watch closely, you can see that in the opening shot of the camcorder recording, Sophie’s face reflects on the screen. Then, throughout the movie, we see many more reflections: on tables, on the water, on windows, on the hotel television, and on mirrors.
One effect these reflections achieve is that they demonstrate the elusive nature of memory. Just like memories, reflections only show an incomplete, distorted image of reality.
Another way I interpreted these reflections was that we never get to see the real picture of the characters’ emotional states. This particularly applies to Calum, who struggles to reveal his inner life to Sophie. In an intensely moving scene, where Calum and Sophie sit on a raft out on the ocean, Calum tells Sophie to remember that she can talk to him about everything — from parties to drugs to boys. On the flip side, Calum censors many aspects of his life to Sophie.
One time, we see a postcard addressed to Sophie in Edinburgh that says:
Sophie,
I love you very much. Never forget that.
Dad
We can assume that this was the final message Sophie got from her dad. Even in this final message, Calum only focuses on how much he loves her rather than revealing his own inner turmoil.
The mask of the jolly dad
To put it another way, Calum’s chief task during the vacation is to curate happy memories for Sophie. But to get there, he needs to wear the incredibly heavy mask of the always goofy, jolly dad.
To keep the mask from crumbling, Calum practices Tai Chi and meditation to calm his mind. (In one scene, we can peek at his self-help books.) He also tries to dodge sad Sophie’s inquisitive questions and her early signs of depression as she tells him one time: “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 organs don’t work…”
Of course Calum knows this feeling. Instead, he responds with empty phrases like, “We’re here to have a good time, eh?” or “Let’s have some fun!” Even when he reveals a darker side to Sophie, he doesn’t want her to record it.
The problem with Calum’s masks (and emotional masks, in general) is that they’re fragile. They can easily break down. The first time this happens is when Sophie loses her goggles in the ocean. Afterward, Sophie can tell that something’s wrong, but Calum just responds with another mask (“I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”)
But Calum’s Kryptonite — the moments where he truly struggles to keep his mask — is when other people are involved. Apart from the “Happy Birthday” scene we saw earlier, there’s also the “Karaoke” scene that illustrates this. In it, Sophie signed them up to sing Losing My Religion at a karaoke event, but Calum is unable to get up from his chair. Sophie has to sing alone. After the song ends, Calum struggles to reconnect with her, resulting in the two spending the night apart from each other. By the time Sophie returns to the hotel room much later in the night, she discovers that Calum has passed out on the bed, naked.
The mask has crumbled completely.
Lyrics say the unsaid
Behind all these masks and mirages is a silver lining, though. Whenever the characters fail to reveal their inner lives to us, the lyrics of the soundtracks compensate for the missing information. In one scene, Calum and Sophie play chess at night on their balcony when Tender by Blur plays in the background. It goes like this:
Tender is the night
Lying by your side
Tender is the touch
Of someone that you love too much
When they go back inside, Sophie asks Calum if he’ll ever return to Scotland, and he responds that it’s unlikely he’ll ever return because Edinburgh is a difficult place for him. (“And there’s this feeling, once you leave where you’re from, like, where you grew up, that, um, you don’t totally belong there again.”)
In the background, we hear the lyrics:
Tender is the day
The demons go away
Lord, I need to find
Someone who can heal my mind
Later, in the “Karaoke” scene, when Sophie sings Losing My Religion by REM, the lyrics show that Sophie begins to grasp that her dad might not be who she thought he was:
That’s me in the corner
That′s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I haven′t said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
And finally, there’s the scene of their last dance scene when they dance to Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie:
Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you, no man ask for
Under pressure that burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets
…
Can’t we give ourselves one more chance?
…
Because love’s such an old-fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the (People on streets) edge of the night
And love (People on streets) dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
There are many more revelations once you start looking. For instance, there’s Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers (“I’ve hungered, hungered for your touch / A long, lonely time”).
4. The True Magic of Aftersun
For some strange reason, after watching the movie, I couldn’t stop thinking about the title. Aftersun. By definition, aftersun is a lotion that you apply to the skin after (extreme) exposure to the sun. The purpose of aftersun is to soothe sunburn, avoid peeling, and comfort the skin.
The same could be said about the movie itself and the ideas it grapples with. We tend to avoid sadness and grief because they’re intensely painful. And yet, I wanted to return to all aspects of Aftersun — the soundtrack, the ideas, the screenplay — not in spite of but because of its pain and melancholy. Thinking about the movie, I still feel tears welling up.
It feels cathartic.
This, I think, is the true magic of Aftersun. It’s a heartbreaking movie, but it’s also soothing. I know I can “apply” Aftersun whenever I experience an overexposure to grief or sadness. And I know that the movie will make me feel less alone and more understood in my pain.
Ultimately, Aftersun makes us feel so deeply not just because of the unique way we recreate Sophie’s emotions, the elegant contrast between grief and nostalgia, or the deep desire to protect the ones we love. Above all, Aftersun makes us feel so deeply because it’s subtle enough that we can transfer its story and characters to our own lives. Whether we might be dealing with depression, grief, or parenting — Aftersun is a safe harbor for these challenges. We can dock onto many different facets of the movie, and thus, it makes us feel seen.
Aftersun is a soothing balm for the ongoing rave of our infinitely complex inner lives.