In this section of our Colossus Movie Guide for Aftersun, we talk about themes that help us understand the film.
Cast
- Paul Mescal – Calum
- Frankie Corio – young Sophie
- Celia Rowlson-Hall – adult Sophie
- Sally Messham – Belinda
- Brooklyn Toulson – Michael
- Spike Fearn – Olly
- Harry Perdios – Toby
- Ruby Thompson – Laura
- Ethan James Smith – Scott
- Kayleigh Coleman – Jane
- Charlotte Wells – Writer and director
The themes and meaning of Aftersun
The power of memory
As we discussed in the Ending Explained section, memory plays a huge part in understanding the final moments. Memory is quite relevant throughout the film, as Aftersun focuses on Sophie’s recollection of a vacation she took with her father years earlier. There’s such tension at the heart of that approach because, at the end of the day…our memory isn’t super reliable. When dealing with trauma, we have been led to believe (by the founder of psychoanalysis himself, Friedrich Nietzsche) that by recalling memories, we can pinpoint the exact root of our trauma.
But as writer Eleftherios Makedonas points out in their analysis of the film The Exterminating Angel, the unreliability of memory makes this journey much more complicated:
Memory is the product of the accumulation of layers upon layers of such old and distorted interpretations of reality. When recalled, later in an individual’s life, they are by definition, something irrelevant to the real facts, which triggered them back in the distant past. As Nietzsche has put it, memory can be conceived of as the set of all our “previous false causal fictions”. To such an extent, that even Freud himself has doubted whether we can assert at all that we really have memories from our childhood and not merely memories just vaguely related to our childhood; at best, these “childhood memories” of ours “… show us our earliest years not as they were but as they appeared at the later periods when the memories were aroused.
This makes revisiting memories a complicated endeavor. In Sophie’s case, she is desperate to understand what happened to her father after their trip, how much he was struggling during the trip. The lyrics of the song (“Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie) that plays while Sophie and Calum dance on the last night of their vacation (with the line “this is our last dance”) seems to imply that Calum takes his own life soon afterwards (Wells herself practically confirmed this). Upon reflection, Sophie reads signs of his depression during the trip, such as all his self-help books and the financial troubles that made him feel inadequate. In this sense, memory is Sophie’s only way of coping with the loss and finding resolution.
Yet…how much can Sophie trust her own memories? She could be reading into things too much—or perhaps not reading into them enough. Even photographs and video footage from the trip couldn’t possibly convey what Calum was dealing with mentally. Sophie is left with nothing but a montage of images and sounds to which she’s desperately trying to assign meaning.
There’s a tragic beauty in this theme. Memory is powerful in the sense that it allows us to revisit the past, to relive moments we shared with loved ones. But at the same time, memories aren’t real. They are simply representations of what we perceive as reality. This creates an emotional cognitive dissonance in us all as we attempt to deal with trauma and feel whole again spiritually.
Dealing with depression
Anyone who’s dealt with depression, either themselves or through a loved one, can understand Calum’s detached behavior in Aftersun. I myself witnessed someone very close to me experience a crippling depression that left them comatose emotionally. The person I once knew would sometimes completely disappear and become a lifeless zombie, an overwhelming static presence in the room. You knew something was wrong, but you also knew there was nothing you could say or do to cure the person.
In this sense, the battle with depression exists on two levels in Aftersun. Calum himself is ridden with depression, which causes a great amount of tension as he attempts to make the vacation as enjoyable as possible for Sophie. Sometimes Calum is genuinely happy to be with Sophie, but other times it feels like he’s forcing a smile to make Sophie feel safe. Calum may desperately want to talk about his depression, but he also feels he can’t afford to in this situation—or, perhaps, any situation. He may wander through life like this, constantly disguising himself as a normal person who’s happy with his existence. And as he continually buries that negativity, it consumes him—until it reaches a breaking point.
We see Calum flirting with death in a moment where he stands on the rail of his balcony. It serves as a reminder of the dark crevices of his mind that would eventually push him over the edge.
On the other side of the coin, Sophie is dealing with her father’s depression—even if she doesn’t realize it. When Calum doesn’t join Sophie on stage to sing “Losing My Religion,” she feels betrayed because he left her up there all alone. He is her father! It’s his job to do things like this… But upon reflection, Sophie understands that her father was struggling immensely, that he couldn’t handle being put on display in front of everybody during a moment of weakness. This becomes especially clear when she reflects upon convincing a group of vacationers to sing “Happy Birthday” to Calum, who listlessly stands by as he becomes the center of attention. It’s no surprise, then, that the film fades into a shot of Calum crying immediately after.
There’s such tension between Sophie’s perception of Calum’s depression and Calum’s actual real-time struggle with depression: Sophie will never be able to fully comprehend the weight of Calum’s struggles, and Calum was never able to fully communicate just how much he was struggling. This leaves a debilitating gap between the two that can never be filled. This reveals the devastating gravity of depression that looms over so many people’s lives.
Share Your Opinions
Do you have additional insights regarding the themes and meaning that you believe should be incorporated into the Colossus Movie Guide for Aftersun? Leave your comments below, and we may include your suggestions in our comprehensive guide?
Write a response