Natatorium

The decision to put a private natatorium in one’s home basement is a judgment that has only a few likely antecedents. One is eithe a lover of swimming or they are up to something fishy. For the family grandmother Áróra (Elin Petersdottir) in Natatorium, the debut film from the Icelandic director Helena Stefánsdóttir Magneudóttir, the latter is undoubtedly the case.

This is a very wet movie. That’s fitting for Áróra, who seems to have something of a non-sexual fetish for water. Her daughter, Lilja, drowned under somewhat murky circumstances and ever since the household pool has been a catalyst of PTSD and a source of danger. Another one of her kids, Kalli, played sickly and almost ghoulish by Jónas Alfreð Birkisson, won’t last much longer under the auspices of his mother, whose medicinal care includes injecting him with fish tank water. His siblings Vala (Stefania Berndsen) and Magnús (Arnar Dan Kristjánsson) seem to avoid the house (and their mother) as much as possible, though she has yet to be completely ostracised. Magneudóttir reveals information about Áróra at an excruciating piecemeal pace and yet the characters always know, even at their most ignorant points, an easy three times, what the audience is privy to.

Magnús’s daughter Lilja (newcomer Ilmur María Arnardóttir), named after his dead sister, runs off to her grandparents’ home in the city to try out for a part in a play — a weird one in which she dons a skin-tight blue bodysuit with colourful facepaint and ornate accessories. Aspects of her costume might hint at the undine tradition, though I’m not sure that makes sense within the story’s overall themes.

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