My friend Ana came out of the screening saying: that’s the most Uruguayan British film she had ever seen.
The British go to a foreign country to grapple with their fragile psyches. They don’t interact with the locals, but they do learn about their deep secrets. It’s a lower middle class White Mischief, modern day economic post-colonialism, albeit filmed and edited with a low-fi charm. The holiday movie has a Rohmerian pedigree, and the director’s style is reminiscent in many ways to that of her fellow countrywoman, Lynne Ramsey. Both Ratcatcher and Morven Caller came to mind, albeit Ramsey’s delirious holiday movie succeeded in integrating the local world with slightly more gusto than the Turks who are melded into the background in Aftersun, with Turkey and the resort itself an exotic location for a delicate investigation of childhood trauma.
Why is Aftersun a Uruguayan movie? Because very little happens, and the movie sinks or swims on the audience’s capacity to be captivated by the dreamlike web spun by the cineaste.
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