Natatorium

In town for an audition, eighteen-year-old Lilja decides to stay with her estranged grandparents Áróra and Grímur. She feels at home in their middle-class mansion despite Áróra’s eerie religious rituals and the unexplained presence of a bed-ridden uncle. Lilja aces her audition and unheeding of her aunt Vala’s warning, chooses to prolong her stay. As the whole family gathers to celebrate Lilja’s success, secrets long buried resurface, exposing the grave danger that the teenager now faces.

In her stylish, watery debut feature Natatorium, Helena Stefánsdottir fashions a spine-chilling psychological mystery that illuminates the far-reaching consequences of individual pathology on the life of a family. The filmmaker skilfully orchestrates the audience’s relationship to the film such that, instead of identifying with Lilja alone, our sympathies gradually shift from character to character with every piece of narrative information.

The film unfolds almost entirely inside a single house, with a meticulous production design that emphasises straight lines and steely blues. This cavernous structure, delineated in sinister tracking shots and dream-like dissolves, comes to embody the dysfunction of those living in it. With craft and calculation, Natatorium delivers an icy, claustrophobic work of sustained mystery and unease.

– Srikanth Srinivasan