Aftersun

It’s summer at a campground on the Catalonian coast of Spain. A man tells the hair-raising story of a little boy who disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1980, while three teenage girls hang onto his every word. Their imaginations run wild when the campground mascot—a morose-looking man wearing a bear suit—and his lover start behaving very strangely indeed. The three girls start an investigation, and their carefree vacation, with card games by the tent and fun in the great outdoors, is overshadowed by the specter of child abductions.

In this playful film-about-film, Lluís Galter makes sophisticated use of all manner of genres, switching effortlessly between documentary, thriller, detective story and summertime fairytale. With subtle humor, he invokes the full power of cinematic suggestion to turn the conventions of the “objective documentary” on its head. The fragmentary plot is like a child’s dream at the end of a long vacation day, with exciting games in the dark and whispered rumors in the tent. These teenagers may be on the verge of letting their childhoods go, but so far they’ve kept their lively imaginations.