5 things to watch this weekend – 18 to 20 November

Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide, including BFI Southbank

A sun-kissed holiday in Turkey is recalled from a melancholy distance in this debut feature from Scottish director Charlotte Wells. Paul Mescal and newcomer Frankie Corio play the Brits abroad, a father and daughter sharing time in the sun sometime in the late 1990s, the latter scarcely aware of the gathering clouds that trouble her depressed father. It’s a film of languid moods and unstated emotions, in which Wells gives us the pieces and trusts us to put them together. Perhaps Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar (2002), another enigmatic tale of a brooding Scot on holiday, has been an influence, but Aftersun announces the arrival of a distinctive voice and vision.

Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide and BFI Player

Here is another directorial debut from a thirtysomething female filmmaker offering a masterclass in sustaining mood and mystery. At the helm here is Costa Rica’s Nathalie Álvarez Mesén, though Clara Sola owes as much to debut performer Wendy Chinchilla Araya in her potent central turn as a kind of holy innocent in rural Costa Rica – a woman with learning disabilities and a spine malformation who is prized by villagers for her apparent healing abilities but whose life has been stifled by family and religious conservatism. In this humid atmosphere at the edge of rainforest, Clara Sola weaves a tale of self-awakening and daring difference.

Where’s it on? Blu-ray

Comparable only to the surreal French sci-fi Fantastic Planet (1973), or perhaps the most lysergic sequences of Yellow Submarine (1968), Marcell Jankovics’ Son of the White Mare is a visionary work of shape-shifting animation from Hungary. New to Blu-ray in the UK, it’s a phantasmagorical trip back to a time of legend, involving a horse goddess, princesses, evil dragons, griffins and a journey into the underworld – although the precise specifics of the plot are as difficult to pin down as the mercurial, lava-lamp visuals. The generous package from Eureka also includes Jankovics’ earlier feature Johnny Corncob (1973) alongside several of his short films.

Where’s it on? Film 4, Sunday, 2:25pm

Rivalling Son of the White Mare for its dramatis personae of mythical beasts is this beloved 1960s fantasy adventure telling the Greek myth of Jason and his search for that golden fleece. We get Hydra the water monster, Talos the automaton, flying harpies and an army of skeleton warriors – all brought to juddering life by stop-motion whiz Ray Harryhausen at the height of his powers. The practical effects and Bernard Herrmann’s rousingly epic score make this world of swords and sandals all but irresistible – a “colossus of adventure” as the poster put it. Nearly 60 years on, it’s still one of the more memorable attempts to tackle Greek mythology on screen.

Where’s it on? BBC Two, Sunday, 10pm

BBC Two’s valuable Sunday night series of British independent films continues with this feature debut from Aneil Karia. Ben Whishaw gives a startling, inflamed turn as the airport security officer who goes on a rampage through London after erratic behaviour loses him his job. File this uncomfortably up-close study of a man going over the edge next to Falling Down (1993) or Joker (2019): watching Whishaw’s volatile display of tics and grimaces is like observing a pan kept at the point of boiling over. He holds up a bank, invades a wedding party, has a series of stingingly raw conversations with his estranged parents – all part of an unhinged odyssey through an alienating metropolis in which modern life chafes and bruises.