I think it's nice that we share the same sky
Finishing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2022
#1 : Aftersun
Father-daughter bonding drama starring Paul Mescal and nine-year-old Francesca Corio, attempting to navigate post-divorce family life in a Turkish beach resort. A brilliant debut feature from Charlotte Wells.
So we reach the top of the list and I've heard nothing but praise for this, but it's really gonna have to go some to be better than the last film we saw - here's hoping it is!
As The Guardian says, we're following Calum (Paul Mescal) and Sophie (Francesca Corio, who is eleven both in the film and real life, so quite where they get nine-year-old is beyond me) as they spend some quality holiday time in Turkey.
It's all done as a nice mixture of "real time" filmed footage and "play back" camcorder footage filmed - does that make sense? It's also interspersed with some very cryptic shots (which do finally make sense, but they take their time). The scenes are generally very short - little snippets where often very little happens, and when something does happen it often doesn't seem to relate to anything we've seen before.
You don't feel like you're really seeing anything that might even be close to being called a plot, but you're enjoying the time that you're spending with Calum and Sophie and you get a feel for the sort of people they are. Calum seems like a nice lad and has a decent relationship with Sophie, but doesn't seem to be entirely sure what being a grown up or a parent means. And Sophie is at an interesting age - still happy enough to hang out with her dad but curious to explore some independence, some aspects of which are explored in the film.
You do, however, have a growing sense of unease throughout the film - part of it is from various hints that you're dropped (nothing too obvious though), but also the longer it goes on without much really happening, you can't help but suspect it's storing up a whammy of an ending for you. And obviously I'm not going to tell you any more than that...
The acting really is top notch with Paul and Francesca knocking it out of the park, both separately and in their relationship - they're very watchable even when they're not really doing anything. You'd expect it from Paul (the lad's an aged 27 after all) but Francesca shows a maturity and ability beyond her years. There are other people in the film, but rarely long enough to make an impression - it's very much centred on the pair of them.
It's both written and directed by Charlotte Wells and you'd have to say she's pulled a blinder on her debut. It's really cleverly written, creating the story out of hints and snippets and the style has a lovely sundrenched feel to it during the day which contrasts nicely with the more intimate feel of the night-time shots. And there's some lovely landscape shots in there as well - all in all this is a very impressive film, let alone debut from a 35 year old.
Personally, I preferred The Quiet Girl but this has quite a similar style, not least in terms of drawing you in emotionally. This has less of an obvious plot to it which I can see might annoy some people, but it drew me in slowly and kept me there - the writing is good, but the acting is absolutely stellar. At time of writing it's available to stream on MUBI and rent in all the usual locations and it's well worth a watch.
And that concludes the list - I'd have to say we ended on a high with The Guardian having got three spot of their top four spot on this year. More comments will follow in the next post and then we might pop back to 2019 for a bit or wait for a couple of weeks before the 2023 list starts to appear!
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