Story scent: Sea salt, sunscreen, and sun-warmed pine — the heartbeat of an Aegean summer

Story best enjoyed with a taste of: Green tea

Play on repeat while reading: ‘Re: Stacks’, by Bon Iver

I. Art that Hurts

“Watching this film feels like an act of self-harm for me,” my friend Ian said, his voice reaching me from the edge of the sofa as Hallelujah Junction: 1st Movement from the opening of Call Me by Your Name filled the living room. Sunlight sliced through the patio windows, partially obscured by vibrant hanging plants as we took slow sips of cold green tea. His words shocked me–they felt harsh and jarring, their comparison to self-harm unsettling– but at the same time, I understood exactly what he meant.

We had both seen the film a handful of times and bonded over the way it destroyed us. Despite it, we kept coming back to it. That afternoon, we drew our breath in and braced ourselves for the emotional reckoning we knew was about to unfold.

Everyone has that one, or many works of Art they must approach sparingly. There are Artistic creations that, when experienced, latch onto and implode parts of us we’d prefer to leave untouched, unscathed; suppressed in that safe part of our souls. There are films we claim to love but flinch away from when their picture fills our screens, and songs we skip with haste because they hurl us back to a point in time we aren’t prepared to grapple with yet. Art is powerful for this reason: it forces us to reckon with emotions we have suppressed. We scramble to stem emotion’s flow while they beg desperately for release. Art has the power to act as the impetus for this catharsis we unconsciously crave. It holds our hand and painfully leads us through waves of emotion that are integral to passing through feeling, and emerging on the other side alchemically changed.

At its most potent, Art demands an emotional reckoning so profound that engaging with it repeatedly can feel, indeed, like an act of self-harm.

II. Another Encounter

Months later, I was back home in Bahrain, plagued by dizzying heat and boredom. I scrolled through lists of films I had saved but had yet to watch, and finally decided on Aftersun, directed by Charlotte Wells. It sat on my Letterboxd watchlist for months, collecting dust, so I resolved to finally watch it after being ceaselessly haunted by aesthetic stills from the film on my social media feeds. I pressed play and unknowingly walked into yet another experience of Art that would leave me in emotional turmoil. I knew nothing of the film before I watched it, except for the vague premise that it displayed the relationship of a young father, Callum, and his 11-year-old daughter Sophie on holiday.

The film began, and within the span of an hour and forty minutes, a profound shift occurred within me.

III. The Mosaic

What first captured my attention was the haunting familiarity of the landscape. A quick Google search revealed that Aftersun had been filmed in Ölüdeniz, Turkey, just an hour away from the home I spent every summer in since I was born. The film instantly took on a different shape when I learned this, becoming more intimate and recognisable. Beyond this recognition, however, I found myself utterly confused.

The film unfolded through vignettes from the pair’s holiday, revisited by an adult Sophie as she reflects on this vacation in the present. As an audience, we are not privy to this holiday’s importance until the very end, and even then, its significance is deeply obscure. The project is captured in a fragmentary fashion, through a mix of DSLR-style clips and traditional cinematic shots. Interwoven with these are abstract, strobe-lit club scenes that feature Sophie as an adult and her father as he was on their holiday all those years ago. Tones of grief were palpable throughout the work, but I found myself struggling to connect the incoherent images the film was composed of.

I resolved to treat the watching of Aftersun as a scavenger hunt. I trusted Wells had a vision and that she would lead me to it eventually. I refused to let the ambiguity of the film unsettle me, and patiently collected scatterings of seemingly arbitrarily placed mosaic pieces across the film that, alone, made no sense. I latched onto these tesserae, storing them quietly in my memory as the film progressed, bearing them in a mental bank of enquiry I told myself I’d rummage through when the film was complete. I hopefully anticipated that inevitable moment that we, as an audience, often expect in ambiguous Art–the moment the slow simmer and stewing of these seemingly senseless fragments snap into meaning with stunning clarity at the end.

*

But the ending came, and the clarity didn’t. I still found myself dwelling in that disquieting space of uncomfortable ambiguity and confusion. The closing scene lingered on my mind as the credits rolled, of Sophie hugging her father as they parted ways at the airport. Their time together comes to a close–she is about to depart back home to her mother, and Callum will go back to his life as it was before the trip. Callum films Sophie on his camcorder as she exits the airport and eventually disappears from the frame. When she is out of sight, Callum shuts the camera and walks melancholically through a corridor. As he ambles, the corridor transforms, bleeding a stranded, almost clinical energy. It becomes noticeable that he is the only one there, the corridor now desolate and empty. This image, steeped in tones of isolation, evokes the dooming sensation that something terribly tragic has occurred. It was a feeling so harrowing and evocative of grief that I could only deduce Callum’s possible death or abandonment to be the cause.

Despite this overwhelming sensation that something was wrong, I was left without any clarity about the film’s conclusion. I felt directionless and unmoored, completely unsure about how to respond emotionally. A festering sense of unease loomed over me due to my inability to make the collected mosaic pieces fit in harmony to form a coherent whole. Frustration simmered beneath my skin, and it was then that I realised I was caught in a sense of unresolved, aching ambiguity, and I needed to do everything I could to escape it.

IV. The Cycle of Grief Begins

Later that night, I lurked around inconspicuous corners of the internet, seeking clear explanations of what happened in the film’s ending. I yearned for someone to analyse the mosaic pieces I collected and offer me a glittering, crisp image of the film’s conclusion.

It was late and dark in my room, my skin placid from the glowing blue light that leaked from my bright laptop screen. I stumbled across a Reddit forum dedicated to viewers who left their experience watching Aftersun feeling just as confused as I did: a community working desperately to absolve the ambiguity we couldn’t shake. The final, collective consensus was that the film was a quiet study of grief and men’s mental health. I learned the film was biographical; a retelling of what Charlotte Wells had endured with her father (represented in the film by Callum), who committed suicide shortly after the exact vacation the film depicted. The transition of the film’s ostensible fictional narrative into something lived amplified the unbearable, inexplicable ache I was left with.

The first stage we endure in grief is denial. I couldn’t accept that that terrible, ominous leakage seeping from the film’s pores was due to something as irreversible and tragic as suicide. One Reddit user explained that that inexplicable feeling of longing, loss and pain we sense in the farewell scene at the airport is elicited to implicitly, yet artfully, indicate that Callum is irreversibly gone. I couldn’t accept this, so I revisited those inconspicuous mosaic pieces, searching for evidence that could confirm this as a plausible end to the story. I sifted through fleeting moments that, on their own, seemed inconsequential, trying to trace how they might lead to such a dire conclusion. My heart sank as I realised the proof was all there–in those brief, seemingly unimportant fragments and quiet pains that, together, compounded into the weight that ultimately pushed Callum to end his life.

I assessed all the evidence, starting with the first mosaic piece that came to mind: the scene when Sophie asked Callum what he did on his eleventh birthday. My heart splintered as I remembered his revelation that his family had forgotten the occasion altogether, and when he reminded them of it, his mother responded with violence. She dragged him by the ear to his father, who begrudgingly took him to a toy shop for a present. Even in their attempt to redeem their failure, his parents were cruel.

Another telling mosaic piece was Callum’s revelation to a diving instructor that he was shocked to have made it to 30 and could not imagine himself at 40. Callum’s lack of foresight and enthusiasm towards his future implicitly signals something dire lurking beneath the surface of his comment. Then, there were the moments that showcased his despairing loneliness in his struggle to find a romantic partner. Being void of this sort of companionship entailed that Callum was robbed of a space to intimately process and divulge his tribulations; a space that could have potentially healed him. This absence only serves to exacerbate the gaping feeling of isolation that comes with harrowing solitude.

Then, the clearer mosaic pieces emerge: those explicit displays of Callum’s grief and the pain he carried. I shuddered at the memory of the haunting sound of him wailing at the edge of his bed, alone. The scene follows shortly after Sophie gathers a group of tourists to sing him happy birthday. It feels steeped in grief, possibly for his younger self, due to the heartwarming display of love that mere strangers seemed so capable of showing him that his own family never could.

Each of these moments–fragmented, yet deeply poignant- contributes to the viewer’s understanding of Callum’s life: one marked by unrelenting sadness and quiet suffering. In conjunction, they form a devastating portrait of a man burdened by invisible wounds that became too heavy to bear.

I drew my breath in. The mosaic was finally beginning to come together, but my denial persisted. How could he have committed suicide? Callum had boundless love for his daughter, and there were other mosaic pieces that suggested Callum wanted to get better. We see it in the scenes where he practices Tai Chi and reads books on meditation. These examples quickly become overpowered by other mosaic pieces; scenes where Callum exhibited a clear lack of interest to preserve his life. I thought of the scene where he teetered off the edge of a balcony, another where he almost got hit by a bus after not checking for oncoming vehicles as he crossed the road. In perhaps the most worrisome part of the film, Callum swims into the ocean intoxicated in the dead of night after a moment of uncomfortable tension at dinner with Sophie. It is these moments that reveal the extent of his anguish.

The story in the end became apparent, and I needed to accept its conclusion, as devastated as I was. I got what I wanted in the end–the clarity I sought finally draped itself over all the ambiguous moments I latched onto from the film. Despite the pain that came with the clarity, the outcome that remained in the end was now sharply outlined:

A girl lost her father. A girl lost her father. A girl lost her father.

I shut my laptop, my face salt-stricken in the dark. I wept until I fell asleep, and when I woke the next morning, a dull ache throbbed in my forebrain, and that horribly familiar sense of grief collapsed over me again.

V. On Ambiguity: Reflections

Time passed, and Aftersun found its place among works of Art I approached ever so cautiously. After much reflection, I came to understand that Aftersun’s power resides in its intentional employment of ambiguity, the consequence of which serves to extend the film’s afterlife and impression on its viewer.

Ambiguity possesses the power to create longing — a yearning so deep we can only reconcile with it once its obscurities have been clarified. As consumers of narrative art, we crave resolution to help us make sense of our emotions. By denying us that clarity, Wells ensures that Aftersun lingers in our thoughts, leaving an indelible impression long after the film’s run time.

This observation prompted me to recall a constellation of thinkers who offered morsels of wisdom regarding ambiguity and its ability to elicit affect and emotional resonance in Art.

Brecht and the Denial of Catharsis

When tracing emotional resolution within a work of Art, especially a film or work of theatre, catharsis would certainly be the way to offer it. However, Aftersun refuses traditional, audience-directed catharsis. Instead, the catharsis in the film feels intensely personal to Wells and her experience of losing her father. The final strobe-lit rave scene is where Wells’ personal catharsis can be found. Amongst the flashing, dizzying lights, Sophie approaches Calum. Their interaction involves both pushing and embracing, symbolising the complex emotions of anger, longing, and love that are integral to the grieving process. As viewers, we are voyeurs to Wells’ personal journey through grief, and it feels as though this part of the film serves as a space and universe for Wells to collate and process her father’s departure on her own Artistic terms. As a response to the lack of audience-directed catharsis, which thus brings emotional clarity to the viewer, we are prompted to begin the journey of seeking our own personal catharsis from the film.

Reflecting on Bertolt Brecht’s critique of catharsis, I draw a parallel to how Aftersun resists providing audience-directed emotional release. Without emotional resolution and relief, we are suspended in a lingering silence–a deliberate ambiguity that invertebrates long after the film has ended. In this silence, a space opens up for us to individually engage in the critical faculties of the mind to dissect the film’s meaning. This type of engagement, I notice, is exemplified in the process of mosaic assembly I undertook to establish clarity after experiencing the film. In this way, it feels as though Brechtian thought and Aftersun share a kinship in their refusal to provide traditional emotional closure to consumers of Art, instead prompting something more intimate, meaningful and everlasting for consumers of the film.

Whilst the intention of catharsis’ absence in Aftersun does not feel politically charged or didactic as Brecht would have desired, the technique and its outcome align with Brechtian thought due to the purpose it serves. In being confronted with ambiguity, we as an audience are encouraged to take on an active role in Artistic consumption, as opposed to a passive one.

Barthes and ‘The Death of the Author’

Roland Barthes’ essay ‘The Death of the Author’ offers another lens through which to understand Aftersun’s power. The essay explores the notion that the Artist’s role is not to necessarily dictate meaning within a creative work, but rather to craft a space where meaning can emerge through the viewer’s unique perspective. In this way, Art, regardless of its medium, becomes a vessel for the consumer to infuse with their own interpretations. It is not, therefore, a solipsistic or idiosyncratic creation that obligates the audience to align their understanding of the work with the Artist’s specific intentions.

By withholding clear answers and leaving ambiguities unresolved, Wells allows Aftersun’s audience to fill its gaps with their own unique interpretations, shaped by individual life experiences, associations, and understandings. This approach results in a work whose meaning is as varied as its viewers, yet unified by a common thread: grief. Wells’s use of ambiguity liberates the audience from fixed interpretations, denying the comfort of certainty and enabling a relationship with the Art that feels both deeply intimate and profoundly dynamic.

Implications for the Artist

In concluding my thoughts on ambiguity and its power in art, I find there is a principle we may extract — one that holds a wider application for artists to employ in their work. It relates specifically to using ambiguity as an instrument to evoke longing in the viewer, ultimately ensuring its lasting impression.

When we intentionally employ ambiguity as a feature of our Art, we can evoke lasting impressions from those who watch our films, read our literature, and listen to our music. This is certainly no argument or advocacy for a maxim that the only way to create impressionable Art is through ambiguity. However, the identification of this tool reveals a feature we can consider in the process of creation, if our intention, as Artists’, is to leave an immovable impact. As with any device, there is the danger of enforcing the instrument of ambiguity to a degree that is distasteful and even futile. But where it is employed with sensitivity and amongst other artistic tools and devices, one can almost guarantee they have created Art with everlasting impression.

Conclusion

If I have learned anything, it’s that the ambiguity in Aftersun does not create a sense of emptiness, but instead extends an invitation. It provokes curiosity, not closure, compelling the viewer to search for meaning in the film’s afterlife. It does not seek to manipulate, nor to comfort, but to evoke–quietly, obliquely, and with a profound trust in its audience’s ability to find their own way through its obscurities. Ultimately, this work of Art achieves something rare: it leaves us not with answers, but with questions, and it is in those questions that its power resides.

References

Charlotte Wells, Aftersun, dir. by Charlotte Wells (A24, 2022).

Roland Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author’, in Image-Music-Text, ed. and trans. by Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 142–48.

Brecht, Bertolt, Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and trans. by John Willett (London: Methuen, 1964), pp. 33–42.