And dream of sheep…

Still from ‘The Quiet Girl’, ‘An Cailín Ciúin’

‘The Quiet Girl’ and ‘Aftersun’, two recent, popular, and critically acclaimed films, are first features by their respective directors. They have young girls as leading characters and an emotional tone that is coloured by love, secrets, and depression; sleeping, beds, skies and water are motifs that can be found in both. They are infused with liminality, in-betweenness.

‘Aftersun’ is a sequel, in a different time and place, to Charlotte Wells’ 2015 short film, ‘Tuesday’; they have the same subject and a similar sense of absence and dejection. Like Lynne Ramsay, another contemporary Scottish film-maker, Wells has an interest in young people and in themes of grief, guilt, and the aftermath of death. Their stories unfold slowly and indirectly, and ‘Aftersun’ takes time to reveal exactly what is going on. Its essence remains hidden, invisible. Gradually, however, the narrative becomes clear. Sophie is reflecting on the holiday in Turkey that she shared with her father shortly after her eleventh birthday and just before his thirty-first; absorbed by the home video they shot at the resort, she tries to come to terms with her memories and with what she sees in the film.

The sad and good-natured Calum is determined to have a happy holiday with Sophie and to celebrate her birthday in a way that she will remember, but he is divorced, doesn’t have much money, and is unsure about his future, so he finds it difficult to keep his anxiety a secret. Besides, a cheerless childhood and an unsuccessful marriage have deprived him of a sense of belonging and being cherished. Every now and again his depression surfaces, and Sophie, who is sensitive and intelligent, knows that something is wrong, even though she doesn’t really understand what it is. She does her best to respond to her father’s kindness, and they are usually content and joyful in each other’s company.

Woven intermittently into the film are brief sequences that show Calum dancing frenziedly in a dark nightclub; at first they make little sense, but slowly we begin to realise that they may be imagined or dreamed by the adult Sophie, who watches and joins him in his personal Hades. It seems possible, although it is never stated, that the home video is a record of the last time she spent with her father. By the end of the film, Wells has brought together three worlds: the present, the past, and a liminal space where Sophie and her father meet again, the place where she’s kept him during the years since the holiday in Turkey. We are left, finally, with ambiguity; we can choose to dwell on Calum’s depression and despair, or, more hopefully, on the deep love between father and daughter.

‘The Quiet Girl’, or ‘An Cailín Ciúin’ in Irish, the language which is spoken in the film, is based on a graceful novella, Foster, by Claire Keegan, that was written in English from the equivocal point of view of the girl in the title; the book is close to ‘The Quiet Girl’, but it is defter, more subtle. Directed by Colum Bairéad, the film is set in rural Ireland during the 1980s and tells the story of Cáit, who is sent away for the summer to distant relatives, Eibhlín and Seán. They give Cáit kindness and attention, and as she flourishes under their nurturing care, a close bond is forged between them, so she comes to learn about unconditional love.

The opening images show Cáit lying, or perhaps sleeping, in a rushy field. We can hear her being called home to the family’s dreary farmhouse; the cry of a cuckoo, a bird that doesn’t raise its own young, sounds in the distance, as it does at the end of the film. In the next scene, Cáit hides under her bed. It soon becomes evident that she is lonely and isolated, and that she doesn’t say much because she is content to be overlooked or forgotten. She spends much of her time alone, but even though her presence is of little consequence to her parents, she is one more mouth to feed, and they are expecting another baby. When her mother decides to send Cáit to relatives for the summer, her father can’t be bothered to look up from his racing tips.

As one reviewer of the film has astutely observed, there are different kinds of quietness. There is the quietness of peace and serenity, and another of repression and shame. There is the quietness of contented, absorbing work, and that of fear, the kind of silence a bullied child might retreat into when she hears the heavy tread of an impatient adult on the stairs, or the scoffing of other, more self-assertive, children. ‘The Quiet Girl’ is attentive to all them, to the feelings they contain and evoke. Like ‘Aftersun’, this is also a story about liminal spaces, about the shifting boundary between secrecy and shame, and the gap between the obvious and the hidden. The film encourages us to experience this ambivalence through the gaze of a child, and through her gentle approach to the world. In doing so, we may be returned to the sounds, touches, and feelings of our own childhoods.

‘The Quiet Girl’ demonstrates that love and compassion are not dependent on grand or noble actions. Often, the understatement of generously shared space, affectionate attention, and benign encouragement are all that is needed to create meaningful connections, and the film reflects the illumination such moments can bring to someone who longs for even the smallest gestures of kindness. Nevertheless, despite the happiness that Cáit shares with Eibhlín and Seán during that hot summer, darkness is never far away. Eibhlín has told her that there are no secrets in their house, but that isn’t quite true. One night, after she is shocked by a family revelation, Seán takes Cáit on a moonlit walk to the strand. Looking out at the horizon, where they see tiny lights in the distance, he tells her that fishermen sometimes find horses in the sea, and that a colt, after being towed to the shore, lay motionless on the sand for a while and then stood up, brought back to life. It had only been exhausted. He goes on to explain that strange things occasionally happen, and when Cáit doesn’t respond, he adds: ’You don’t ever have to say anything. Remember that. Many’s the man who has lost much because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.’

Before Cáit is reluctantly taken back to her parents’ house after the baby has been born, an unhappy incident, an echo of the secret, takes place at a nearby well. Nonetheless, although the ease and intimacy of the summer may be over, Cáit has been revived. She hugs Seán at the home farm gate, whispering an ambiguous ‘Daddy’ into his ear as her father walks ominously down the lane towards them, and we know that a corner has been turned, that she has resisted the pull of darkness. The way ahead is uncertain, but Cáit has experienced the warmth of benevolence and tenderness.

For further exploration:

The screenplay of ‘Aftersun’: https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Aftersun-Read-The-Screenplay.pdf

An interview with Charlotte Wells: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/dec/23/charlotte-wells-on-aftersun-the-guardians-best-film-of-the-year-the-grief-expressed-is-mine

Claire Keegan’s short story, ‘Foster’: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/15/foster

An interview with Colm Bairéad: https://www.hotpress.com/film-tv/colm-bairead-on-an-cailin-ciuin-ive-never-made-anything-that-was-completely-in-english-thats-borne-of-my-upbringing-i-have-irish-and-i-love-irish-22907108

‘And Dream of Sheep’ by Kate Bush: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_256xd9N27o

Image on index page: still from ‘Aftersun’