Aftersun: Our Last Dance

By: Michelle

Aftersun originally starts with an adolescent girl named Sophie who's going on vacation in Turkey with her father, Calum, through a camera footage. The film is about reminiscing adult Sophie’s memories through home video of their vacation, puzzling and questioning her father's signs of depression that eventually led to his death. At its core, Aftersun is about memory, loss, and the effort to understand a parent's mind through an incomplete child’s lens. 

From: A24

In the movie, the viewers can notice Calum’s signs of depression even though it's not shown and explained explicitly. At the first scene when Sophie is recording and asks Calum “When you were 11, what did you think you would be doing now?” There's a sudden mood change and Calum immediately tells Sophie to stop recording, which indicates that Calum no longer sees his future ahead and that's the reason he tells her to stop. The cause of his depression is not being talked about specifically, however you can find a moment where Calum speaks out about his financial struggle and mention of divorced wife. In some scenes, Calum also shows cue that he ‘Doesn’t fit in’ and belongs nowhere.

As a kid we often forgot that our parents are also separate individuals who have their own mind, feelings, and night anxieties. Just like Calum, our parents may appear fine in front of us, but there's a hidden shame that they couldn't utterly show. The movie Aftersun captures depression accurately, like the way it is not noticed and shared openly and that's also what we often find in real life people with depression. Depression is not just about being dull, dark, and sorrowful, it could be vivid, full of laughter but feeling apathy. To them, living for a day feels like a year while carrying heavy stones behind their eyes.

People often see suicide as an ‘egoistic’ and ‘selfish’ choice. Personally speaking, for most people suicide is not a choice, it's an act of their last rebel against society. Suicide is a proof that our society has failed us, but instead of fixing it, our society pushes them aside and labels them as ‘liability’ only because they don't serve anymore. Based on my observation, especially in my beloved country, people who commit suicide oftentimes are perceived as an idiot, coward, and even an attention seeker. Suicide is a strong taboo topic in my country, which lead to prevention of a lot people to get help. If our society can't help us then what we can do right now is to start from ourselves, be kinder to people around you because we never know what they are going through. I notice our social media promotes a lot about “self-love” which is a good thing but loving ourselves fully feels too hippocratic, we come with flaws and not all of them are ‘good things’. I think what suits better is self-acceptance. You don't have to force yourself to love every inch of you, you just have to accept you. Because in the end, the most important relationship you have to maintain is with yourself.