Natatorium, 2024.
Written and Directed by Helena Stefansdottir.
Starring Ilmur María Arnardóttir, Elin Petersdottir, Stefania Berndsen, Jónas Alfreð Birkisson, Valur Freyr Einarsson, and Arnar Dan Kristjánsson.
SYNOPSIS:
Lilja visits her estranged grandparents in the city as she undergoes an auditon for an international art performance group. When her father, who has been overseas, and aunt find out a sense of panic arises. Dark secrets emerge from the household that threaten to upstage not only Lilja’s future career, but also her life.
Melancholy family anxieties are well represented in Scandinavian cinema. Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen (The Celebration) showed this off to the extreme back in the 1990s, with pitch black humour sharing space with the unravelling of secrets of the grimmest magnitude possible. Going further back and often taking in a strong measure of faith and religion, we have the works of Ingmar Bergman, and Carl Theordore Dreyer, who with films such as Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and Dreyer’s Ordet proclaimed the northern edges of Europe as stages ideal for tales of wonder, angst and trauma.
Icelandic first time director Helena Stefansdottir’s mythlike work Natatorium is well placed to join that esteemed list of shadowy sagas. Focusing on the character of Lilja (Ilmur María Arnarsdóttir, making her onscreen debut) as she visits her grandparents in order to make a creative arts audition, we see the claustrophobic and internal world of the family though her eyes.
Set in one house over five days, the intensity of the situation is expertly presented by the grandmother, and head of the family, (played with relish by Elín Petersdottir, recently seen in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga) as she attempts to manipulate the lives of those around her.
There is an excellent scene in Natatorium that ably demonstrates the dynamics at work. Lilja’s aunt tells her about her business as a medicinal herbalist and how some people in the city tease her as a witch. She explains how she embraces her witchery and gives a history lesson of how the patriarchy demonised anything to do with wise women back in the day, as they were (and still are) a direct threat to the makeup of a particular kind of society. Even the only day of the week with a name associated with an ancient goddess (Friday) was denigrated, according to aunt Vala. The scene is a striking reminder of how support in a difficult situation can take different forms, and in this case, it has a dreamlike quality brought out by the intimacy of the lighting and mood of the setting.
Natatorium is a stunning debut from Helena Stefansdottir, and brilliantly unpicks the many layers of a family tragedy piece by piece. The profound sense of longing for a resolution to problems that have gone on for decades is powerfully brought out through excellent acting and poetic scripting and assured direction.
It also has a clear view of the power of roles in the family. The grandmother is in control of the family, with her husband almost seeming brainwashed or just steadfastly reluctant to face up to any of the realities on his doorstep. Overall, the film is an elegant puzzlebox of a picture, showing how people can be so close and yet so far away in almost every sphere of their lives.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk
