It's been years since posting here and never before for a reason that entails major spoilers, so this is a serious alert: If you haven't seen the film and don't want major spoilers, wait til you've seen the film to read this. I myself went into this film, as i typically do, knowing nothing of what to expect (reading no reviews) and that surely accounts for much of the unprecedented degree of "fog" throughout my viewing (although the terrible audio we had, missing lots of dialogue, was also part of the fog), such that as we left the theater, baffled, i couldn't have imagined giving it an "8" or even writing here, but that's where the "landmines" come in ... After getting home, reading many critics' reviews, I began to see the film through such new eyes that i suddenly made sense of its plotline and meaning that went way beyond what any critic was saying. I just finished every 'user review' here too and it has persuaded me to write this because i don't see anyone interpreting it in the way I'm here to propose:
I now believe that adult Sophie is (re)watching the camcorder that she has kept for 20 years with this one life-puzzle tape in it and now watches it (yet again?) with added poignancy and purpose for her now being the age her father was then. I believe she has probably rewatched this film many times searching for clues in her father that she didn't fully comprehend at the time. "Aftersun" may allude to a metaphorical "sunburn" she was left with from that trip and is forever dogged by.
While for Sophie that trip meant reconnecting with a dad she loves and misses (wishing at the end that they could stay on together in hotels forever) and, despite all her hesitant inquisitiveness seeking to know dad better and how he sees the world, she had not at all perceived the ultimate purpose of the trip for her dad. In retrospect, he telegraphed the purpose of the trip for him in ways we viewers in the moment also didn't fully "get" as to their "landmine" potential: Especially when he teaches Sophie how to defend herself physically, to hold up her arms just right, etc., he becomes agitated that she isn't taking it as seriously as he wishes and urges upon her just how important this learning is. (Only he knows that he won't have future opportunities to teach her these things.) In other scenes, he's relaying life lessons about being true to herself, etc. For me the landmine only 'exploded' an hour after the film - to realize that Dad knew this was how he'd chosen to spend his last days, doing all he could think of to leave life lessons and self-protections for his beloved daughter's future life.
We don't know what oppresses and depresses her father - and I believe two key scenes are in reverse-chronology (plausibly as adult Sophie's memory evokes them in that order): we see him enter the ocean and never return before we see him sobbing naked on the edge of the bed. (Of course, neither of those scenes can be from her watching the camcorder tape, i.e., they couldn't have been taped, but instead are either from adult Sophie's imagined scenes as to how some of her father's actions played out after she boarded the plane or from just the third-person narration stance that the film did often incorporate.) I believe a reason we'd seen dad fall asleep naked on the bed previously was background to give context when he sits naked and sobbing - and he's alone in the room. This is the truth of what happened after he left the airport through the double doors. He had planned this exodus but it filled him with grief nonetheless - a grief he'd been carrying since childhood when parents didn't remember his birthday(s) and he felt unimportant, untreasured, unloved - which would have given every reason for lifelong depression but we also could have been seeing a dad who was confronted, say, with a terminal illness or other reason besides "simply" depression. For whatever reason, I believe he bought the rug knowing it would be a tactile connection to him that he would be leaving for her (in his personal effects that would be sent to her). I believe he drank more at the end because as her departure grew close so did his intended plan to let the ocean take him away and he was drowning his sadness at leaving his daughter's world as he'd already decided to do. I think doing karaoke with her again was perhaps just too wrenching now that it was the eve of their final time together.
I also believe that his saying "I love you" to Sophie's mom, that made her confused and curious could well have happened if, say, their marriage had ended because of his depression but there was still caring and love.
I believe all this 'emotional history' of her two parents that she gets random clues about during that trip have become core pieces of a puzzle of who Sophie is to herself and yet adult Sophie still looks at the camcorder for more clues about what she might have missed in her father's words and actions during that trip.
I think the 'disco shards' of memory that intervene in the film at times are adult Sophie's ongoing bombardments of puzzle pieces about her heritage - her parents' relationship that brought her into existence and what they were like ... given that at least one parent was capable of sheltering her from the full truth of his (suicidal) intentions.
I myself find all these thoughts to be in the realm of over-interpretation, and I lay them out here partly as my own reality-check whether anyone else did see or could see the plotline and message in this way? Since none of the dozens of reviews I read tonight broached any of these readings of the film except for one commenter here who, almost as an aside, thought Sophie's dad at the end either a) went for cigarettes and disappeared or b) committed suicide, which the commenter sort of dismissed with an "eek."
My own view entails no "eek." And if anything, especially reading all kinds of reviews that used the word 'vulnerability' to describe what her father seemed uncomfortable with. That made me think of Brené Brown's work (on the power of vulnerability - if you're not familiar google that on TED talks and join the 60+ million people who've watched her talk; many a suicide results from the shame of vulnerability) and how one possible message in this film could be a kind of outcry from an abandoned daughter, 20 years later, wishing her father - as she keeps rewatching him on the 'eve' of his suicide - might have not despaired to the point of ending his life because of shame or a sense of failure that may have undergirded his depression. And indeed some of young Sophie's questions of her dad on that trip can be seen as her probing to understand her dad's inner radar and (painful) life experience and learning.
Please forgive my excesses of verbiage here or of what may seem off-the-wall over-interpretations. I write them largely to elicit whatever connection any reader might make and share to any of these notions of the film's message. Thanks.
I now believe that adult Sophie is (re)watching the camcorder that she has kept for 20 years with this one life-puzzle tape in it and now watches it (yet again?) with added poignancy and purpose for her now being the age her father was then. I believe she has probably rewatched this film many times searching for clues in her father that she didn't fully comprehend at the time. "Aftersun" may allude to a metaphorical "sunburn" she was left with from that trip and is forever dogged by.
While for Sophie that trip meant reconnecting with a dad she loves and misses (wishing at the end that they could stay on together in hotels forever) and, despite all her hesitant inquisitiveness seeking to know dad better and how he sees the world, she had not at all perceived the ultimate purpose of the trip for her dad. In retrospect, he telegraphed the purpose of the trip for him in ways we viewers in the moment also didn't fully "get" as to their "landmine" potential: Especially when he teaches Sophie how to defend herself physically, to hold up her arms just right, etc., he becomes agitated that she isn't taking it as seriously as he wishes and urges upon her just how important this learning is. (Only he knows that he won't have future opportunities to teach her these things.) In other scenes, he's relaying life lessons about being true to herself, etc. For me the landmine only 'exploded' an hour after the film - to realize that Dad knew this was how he'd chosen to spend his last days, doing all he could think of to leave life lessons and self-protections for his beloved daughter's future life.
We don't know what oppresses and depresses her father - and I believe two key scenes are in reverse-chronology (plausibly as adult Sophie's memory evokes them in that order): we see him enter the ocean and never return before we see him sobbing naked on the edge of the bed. (Of course, neither of those scenes can be from her watching the camcorder tape, i.e., they couldn't have been taped, but instead are either from adult Sophie's imagined scenes as to how some of her father's actions played out after she boarded the plane or from just the third-person narration stance that the film did often incorporate.) I believe a reason we'd seen dad fall asleep naked on the bed previously was background to give context when he sits naked and sobbing - and he's alone in the room. This is the truth of what happened after he left the airport through the double doors. He had planned this exodus but it filled him with grief nonetheless - a grief he'd been carrying since childhood when parents didn't remember his birthday(s) and he felt unimportant, untreasured, unloved - which would have given every reason for lifelong depression but we also could have been seeing a dad who was confronted, say, with a terminal illness or other reason besides "simply" depression. For whatever reason, I believe he bought the rug knowing it would be a tactile connection to him that he would be leaving for her (in his personal effects that would be sent to her). I believe he drank more at the end because as her departure grew close so did his intended plan to let the ocean take him away and he was drowning his sadness at leaving his daughter's world as he'd already decided to do. I think doing karaoke with her again was perhaps just too wrenching now that it was the eve of their final time together.
I also believe that his saying "I love you" to Sophie's mom, that made her confused and curious could well have happened if, say, their marriage had ended because of his depression but there was still caring and love.
I believe all this 'emotional history' of her two parents that she gets random clues about during that trip have become core pieces of a puzzle of who Sophie is to herself and yet adult Sophie still looks at the camcorder for more clues about what she might have missed in her father's words and actions during that trip.
I think the 'disco shards' of memory that intervene in the film at times are adult Sophie's ongoing bombardments of puzzle pieces about her heritage - her parents' relationship that brought her into existence and what they were like ... given that at least one parent was capable of sheltering her from the full truth of his (suicidal) intentions.
I myself find all these thoughts to be in the realm of over-interpretation, and I lay them out here partly as my own reality-check whether anyone else did see or could see the plotline and message in this way? Since none of the dozens of reviews I read tonight broached any of these readings of the film except for one commenter here who, almost as an aside, thought Sophie's dad at the end either a) went for cigarettes and disappeared or b) committed suicide, which the commenter sort of dismissed with an "eek."
My own view entails no "eek." And if anything, especially reading all kinds of reviews that used the word 'vulnerability' to describe what her father seemed uncomfortable with. That made me think of Brené Brown's work (on the power of vulnerability - if you're not familiar google that on TED talks and join the 60+ million people who've watched her talk; many a suicide results from the shame of vulnerability) and how one possible message in this film could be a kind of outcry from an abandoned daughter, 20 years later, wishing her father - as she keeps rewatching him on the 'eve' of his suicide - might have not despaired to the point of ending his life because of shame or a sense of failure that may have undergirded his depression. And indeed some of young Sophie's questions of her dad on that trip can be seen as her probing to understand her dad's inner radar and (painful) life experience and learning.
Please forgive my excesses of verbiage here or of what may seem off-the-wall over-interpretations. I write them largely to elicit whatever connection any reader might make and share to any of these notions of the film's message. Thanks.