A young family struggle to cope with shattering loss in Narcosis, a poetically shot and emotionally rich debut feature from Dutch director Martijn de Jong, which the Netherlands recently submitted to the Academy Awards as its official Best International Feature contender. Serving both a literal and symbolic meaning, the title alludes to nitrogen narcosis, variations in air pressure which can cause numbed senses, hallucination, disorientation and extreme anxiety in deep-water divers. Already playing in domestic cinemas, this handsome domestic tragedy makes its international festival premiere in Thessaloniki this week. Strong performances, universal subject matter and potential Oscar buzz should boost art-house interest and theatrical potential in wider markets.
In an extensive pre-credits sequence that plays more like an opening act than a prologue, de Jong and his screenwriter wife Laura van Dijk sketch out an idyllic family set-up. Angular beauty Thekla Reuten (Lost, In Bruges) stars as Merel, a 40-ish mother married to fun-loving, thrill-seeking charmer John (Fedja van Huêt). This handsome couple have a sensitive pre-teen skater-boy son Boris (Seep Eritrea) and a cherubic younger daughter Ronja (Lola van Zoggel), all living the pastoral dream together in their elegantly shabby-chic woodland home.
But a tingle of tension hangs in the air, as John is about to fly off to South Africa for an exploratory diving trip into Boesmansgat, a notoriously deep and perilous freshwater cave that has claimed the lives of many divers. The bottom of this sinkhole is nothing but “beautiful pitch black,” he tells Boris, “the closest you can get to the centre of the Earth.” When John fails to return, as Merel fears, the darker main section of the story begins.
Most of Narcosis takes place a year later, with the family still coming to terms with John’s loss, their drawn-out anguish made worse because no body was ever recovered. Stuck in the denial stage of grief, Merel is also facing financial problems as the legal process of confirming the death for insurance purposes becomes an arduous bureaucratic grind. Although she previous earned money from her gifts as a psychic, reaching out to make contact with the dead on behalf of grieving loved ones, she had dropped this sideline for a more conventional job at a tanning salon, apparently too wary of using her supernatural skills to try contacting her own departed soulmate. Or, more likely, fearful of confirming that he really is dead.
But even as Merel blocks this fragile channel to the afterlife, spooky hints and hallucinations still seep into her waking dreams. Both children also find comforting ways to reconnect with their absent father, a potentially sensational subplot which the film-makers keep tastefully ambivalent. Serving as an extra character in the drama, the house also undergoes a subtle transformation here, from emotional comfort zone to faintly sinister memory palace. Flashbacks establish how Merel and John transformed the place from a picturesque semi-ruin to a family home, filling it with love, children and eccentric junk. Now, with eerie echoes and creepy shadows haunting every corner, she weighs up the painful but financially prudent option of selling up and moving on.
If Narcosis feels like a ghost story, that is because it is, in one sense at least. But it is mostly a lyrical and insightful exploration of grief, catharsis and closure, anchored in high-calibre performances from both its adult and child stars. De Jong plays into familiar tear-jerking tropes at times, while the non-linear plot becomes slightly baggy and draggy in its mid-section, blunting its dramatic momentum. Then again, these nervy loops and rambling tangents arguably embody an inherent truth about the messy emotional surges that follow bereavement. Free-wheeling camerawork, often hand-held, balances close-up intimacy with luminously lovely nature shots. Meanwhile a twinkly, syrupy score and a pastel-shaded, bleached-out, watercolour palette lend the whole film a slightly incongruous but not unpleasant patina of rustic-boho lifestyle porn.
Director: Martijn de Jong
Screenwriters: Laura van Dijk, Martijn de Jong
Cast: Thekla Reuten, Fedja van Huêt, Sepp Ritsema, Lola van Zoggel, Vincent van der Valk
Cinematography: Martijn van Broekhuizen
Editing: Lot Rossmark
Production designer: Romke Faber
Music: Jorrit Kleijnen, Jacob Meijer
Producer: Trent
Production companies: OAK Motion Pictures (NL), NTR (NL)
World sales: Coccinelle Film
Venue: Thessaloniki International Film Festival (International Competition)
In Dutch
102 minutes
