She did not see it coming nor did she intend to, but Charlotte Wells (Edinburgh, 35 years old) now knows that almost everyone cries at the end of
Aftersun
.
Journalists have confirmed it to her, she has read it in reviews and she has even heard anonymous spectators moan inconsolably behind her seat at a festival pass.
"I'm sure I didn't mean to make anyone cry and I didn't want to emphasize that, but I think it's an indicator of how the film has connected on a very deep level with people, and that, frankly, has been incredible." , assures the other side of the screen in a telematic conversation.
Settled in New York for a few years, the Scotsman arrives with a busy day of international promotion.
After garnering 35 awards at festivals so far this year —among them the French Touch at Cannes, four Gotham Awards and sweeping the list of winners at the British Independent Awards (BIFA), winning the statuette for best film, best direction, best screenplay , debuting director, photography, editing and musical supervision—, his debut in a feature that tells of a vacation in the nineties of a father and his daughter at a
resort
British in Turkey arrives in Spanish theaters this December 16.
And it does so supported by more than 60 million views on TikTok that are pure declarations of love from users, viral clips of its protagonists and up to 100% positive reading on Rotten Tomatoes, the emotional thermometer of critics in the net.
Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal spent two weeks together in Turkey before shooting began on the film.Sarah Makharine
The
hype
—that anglicism that perfectly captures the mix of hype, sense of persecution and expectation— couldn't be higher: the
indie
devotion to
Aftersun
, at this time of the year, is already bordering on cult status.
“I am aware of what is said on the Internet, I also sometimes see myself looking for things, but I do not think it is a good thing, but rather dangerous.
On the one hand, it is true that you need people to go to the movies;
on the other, it is better that people go to the room without any context ”, clarifies her director, sincerely overwhelmed by the commotion.
Fill the void of loss
In this tender and devastating film about the experience of loss, Sophie, a 30-year-old woman who has just become a mother, recalls, through her memories and the videotapes she recorded, the week of vacation in Turkey they shared with her father (Calum) when he was her age and she was 11 years old.
Using these VHS as mismatched pieces of an emotional puzzle, Sophie looks back as if those clips might offer answers to a riddle she will never solve.
“When you lose someone, it's like you become the sole guardian of those shared memories.
The relationship becomes a totally one-sided experience and that is when it creates real loss.
That's what the movie plays with: what does it mean when you're the only one who can remember, when you're forced to fill those gaps you could never fill.
Paul Mescal (Calum), in a moment of 'Aftersun'.Sarah Makharine
Missed but united, father and daughter share a week under the sun with the urgency of those moments that taste like a reunion and a farewell at the same time.
Without the need to explain too much and with a clever narrative use of the soundtrack —like that moment when they dance
Under Pressure
in a dreamy sequence—, Wells offers eloquent gaps about the life curriculum of a sensitive and withdrawn father who drags along a past that is intuited in turmoil.
A depressed and gentle young man who seems to have lived too fast, who is mistaken for his daughter's older brother and who no longer lives in the town where Sophie resides with her mother.
"I think it's nice that we share the same sky," her daughter tells him in one of those moments of intimacy that, far from being sweetened or forced, are presented, like almost everything in the film, as unique and magical moments.
without moralisms
Masterfully interpreted by Frankie Corio, who was chosen after a
casting
of 800 girls, that smart and determined Sophie, on the verge of discovering her sexuality and who yearns to experience it all, has become the revelation of the season.
To her viral speech at BIFAs in which she yelled “I am the star!”
we must add to the interest that Paul Mescal already arouses, who plays the father.
The Irishman is one of the internet's favorite boyfriends since he starred in the adaptation of
Normal People
of Sally Rooney and his relationship with the artist Phoebe Bridges was known.
“I feel responsible for getting Frankie into this industry at such a young age.
But I think she's really good at what she makes of herself and we try to help her with everything.
Paul was definitely the one who was most prepared for what was to come next.
Sometimes, I too have been able to feel paralyzed by this attention, ”says her director, who brought the protagonists together for two weeks in Turkey to achieve that sincere complicity between the two.
Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal, in a moment of 'Aftersun'.Sarah Makharine
Wells weaves a delicate, sensory bond that rolls closely, creating dreamily beautiful images, and he does so without meddling in his characters' decisions.
“This is a movie about grief, but also about joy.
And for me it was crucial not to judge any of the facets of their lives, ”clarifies her director.
The one who looks is the one who faces her own prejudices.
“I know that people expect to see the movie in a certain way, like something terrible is going to happen or there's going to be a big apology.
However, the key is also to show how children can become much more resilient than we think”, she adds.
The detail of Torremolinos
“When you're writing a movie and you're the only author, it's inevitable that each person that appears is a different expression of your life,” Wells says.
And with her intense debut, it is inevitable to wonder about the autobiographical residue that she has left in the film.
"They always ask me if the movie is," the Scotsman clarifies when she is asked if that key phrase about the estrangement that Calum says to his daughter at one point in the film ("There is this feeling, once you leave the place where you grew up, that you will no longer belong to that place anymore") she has experienced it herself regarding her native Edinburgh.
"I tend to answer that the film is not exactly inspired by me and my father at all, and this is a good example to understand that the one who speaks there is not him, it's me," she clarifies.
And, before hanging up, he offers yet another key clue.
That tourist complex made for sun-hungry precarious Brits that could be the twin of those that crowd the Spanish coast, actually it is a bit.
“That moment when one of the tour guides screams at the speed of light 'Torremolinos!'
It happened to me, exactly the same, in Spain on vacation with my father when I was a girl.
It was something that we always found very funny.
I needed to get that joke in, even though the movie takes place in Turkey.
Without a doubt, there could have been another version of this film that took place in Torremolinos”.
Charlotte Wells, director of 'Aftersun'.Emma McIntyre
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