Aftersun (2022) dir. Charlotte Wells

It's been almost three years since I last talked to my dad. 

It happened like that, without me even realizing it. One day I had a father and the next his number was muted. 

When I was younger, I was his pride and joy. We did many things together, every weekend. My parents divorced around my second or third birthday so I never knew them together. My mom had had another daughter from a previous union and I was my dad's jewel. Literally. It meant getting spoiled often with gifts and little things. We visited museums and castles every time I was at his house, went pony riding and ate whatever I wanted. At night, I slept with him, all cuddled up on the couch, some documentary playing in the background, on the big old TV. I vividly remember these moments, painted in my mind on a pristine canvas. I never touched it, in fear of tainting them. 

I've watched Aftersun (2022) on his birthday, last year.

It made me think about killing myself.

We went on a trip once, just the two of us. Without my step-mom. I was almost so young that I barely remember anything. We took a boat across the Mediterranean Sea and I saw dolphins swimming right next to my window. He stayed up all night playing cards with another guy and I had a really cute backpack though I can't remember for the life of me what was the design. It might have lasted a few hours or a few days. Time when you're such a tiny kid doesn't work the same. It was a big adventure but, unless Sophie in the movie, I was too young and didn't really cherished this memory enough. It was the only time we went somewhere together. I almost lost my favourite plushie on the way home. It was summer and I might have been wearing only pink clothes as it was my favourite colour at the time. It was over twenty years ago. Now, it's almost lost in this memories gallery. And unfortunately, most of them aren't good. 

As I grew up, the castles visits and weekly gifts disappeared. He got married to my step-mom and I was a flower girl. Our cat got babies. I got a younger brother, then two, then a little sister. Our cat's babies got babies. This family I was in the center of before became something else. I wasn't really part of it anymore. Not like a normal family, anyway. It was them and it was me. I became a visitor and my bedroom turned into my brothers'. Then the abuse started. But I wasn't there. I was never there when everyone else suffered. My weekly visits became bi-weekly. I was seeing them less and less. And I turned into somewhat of a traitor in my mind. I didn't see what was happening right under my nose. I hated them because I was a teenager and they were the most annoying people ever. They were too loud and the children broke my kids and my step-mom was overbearing and my father didn't really look at me anymore.

I spent four days each months with them and it was already too much for me. We went on vacations and I disliked every single second of it because I just wanted to be home, to see my friends and to get away from them. I found petty reasons to dislike them just because I wanted to. Not because they were unlikable. Not my dad, though. Over time, he became increasingly more and more insufferable. More despicable. But he never did anything to me. He never touched me, never hurt me physically. So, for a while, I thought that my pain was illegitimate. Especially since what the others went through was worse. You could say I have sort of a survivor guilt. I now realize that mental abuse is as dangerous as physical and he hurt all of us. But for a long time I wondered why he loved me so much and how it was my fault. I didn't want his love because it felt like a burden but I had to shoulder it or else it made me kind of a hypocrite. Whatever I do, I'll always be my father's daughter and it's my cross to bear. 

Aftersun isn't a movie about abuse. But it's a movie about fathers. And I can't dissociate abuse from my dad. 

It tainted all my good memories. The pristine canvas are only this way because they've been stored away in the depths of my mind. I barely even think about them anymore. My memories aren't videos like Sophie's. I don't have any proof of how my dad was before I realized he was the worst person I know. He only exists in pictures. And I'm ashamed to say that I really like some of these pictures. I love these tiny parts of a childhood I don't remember living. They're frozen in time. Parts of my past without me even knowing, really. I have hundreds of these but not a single video of him. It's been three years and I can't remember what he sounds like. I don't want to hear his voice ever again but I wish I had the choice. 

Aftersun is such an interesting movie because it's meant to be seen through Calum's eyes but it really is from Sophie's perspective, in my opinion. She's rediscovering her own story with her dad's memories. Personally, it really touched me because it made me see it from two very different lenses. The first is the child's one. It made me think about everything I enjoyed before learning the truth about it. The childish triviality we all go through. I remembered that feeling of carelessness. It made me yearn for it. The second is the adult's. The depressed type of adult. Someone who's idea of life is not living at all. Someone who'd rather give everything up than going on. I found myself in him. Sure, I'm far from being a parent, but I still feel like I have responsibilities to everyone around me. I owe them something so I'll keep on going. But just as Calum I sometimes make stupid decisions and ponder over death. 

To me, Calum and Sophie are two sides of one person. And this person is me. 

And I wouldn't be anyone if not for my dad. 

Aftersun means the world to me. In a way I could never really fully describe even if I tried. My father bought rugs. Many of them. Metaphorical rugs, all in different shapes and forms. My father danced without caring how he looked. I went to holidays with my father but spent more time with my step-mom than with him. I've spent more of the twenty last years with her than him. I don't recall when he stopped being my dad. Even before he disappeared from my life, I barely ever spoke with him. At first it was because I was a teenager and I never spoke about anything anymore. Then it was because I didn't want to exist in the same space as someone so violent and terrifying. I think I may be one of my father's rugs. Sometimes it feels like it. He threw me out, once. Just as you do to a rug. Because I betrayed him in his mind. I was eleven and I sat outside of the home while he threw all of my stuff through the window. I remember my magazine collections, my stuffed animals, the huge tiger plushie my mima got me once for Christmas and my pink bathrobe laying on the ground among many other things. He kept my toys because they were also my brothers'. He threw almost everything else. An hour later, my mom came pick me up. I never saw most of these things ever again. They're still laying on the ground of my mind, waiting to be tidied up away. 

Aftersun makes me want to love my father but it also helps me understand that the man on the pictures isn't the one who hurt me and everyone else around him for years. They're one and only but they're also different. I will never love him ever again but sometimes I miss him. I can't help but feel jealousy creeping up my neck every time I see a daughter and her father together. I'm annoyed at my little sister because she still sees him every week but I can't do anything. I just have to wait until she's old enough to realize what he really is. I just hope she'll have videos. 

I don't think I'll ever become a parent. But if it happens, then I'll try and do like Sophie. I'll watch those pictures of my father and I'll try to be the good person he never was. This abuse has to end with me, one way or another. And it's okay for me to find myself looking back at the little boy he once was, with scrapped knees and red marks lying across his face. It's okay to wish someone would have been tender with him. It will never change what happened. He had dreams and hopes and they never became real. Not through him, not through me, not through my brother. He's still alive somewhere, closer to me than I like it to be. I know he still exists. But I don't think I still have a father. I think I lost him the first time I wish he was dead, a long time ago. 

Losing my dad also means losing a part of my identity, in a way. I have cousins I have never met and I forgot my other cousins' names. I don't remember my aunt's face or if my uncle was nice. It's been more than ten years since I last visited one of the country that makes my origins. I don't speak the language, I don't know the customs. It's something that I miss sometimes, more than my dad. I grief this part of myself, too. I should try and get it back for myself but it's harder when there's no one to guide you. I regret many things but one of them is that I never appreciated one of my home countries enough. I'd like to go back someday. I'd swim in the sea and buy a rug. And maybe I'll feel closer to myself this way. 

In the end, this is more of a rant about myself than it is a film review. But I think that movies can really be loved when you find a piece of yourself in them. It's not necessary but the movies I love the most are the ones that reflect some of me. Like thousand of broken mirrors, all reflecting only a slice of who I really am. So that's why Aftersun is such an important movie to me. I know I didn't talk about the cinematography, the phenomenal actors or the storytelling but I wholeheartedly believe it's a movie you should see before reading about it. You have to watch it with your own eyes and not through someone else's eyes. It's a six stars movie in my book! 

Well, now I'll finally release you from my incessant rambling! Have a great day!!