With Oscar submission ‘Narcosis’, director Martijn de Jong makes a moving feature debut ★★★★☆

Within minutes, the Dutch mourning drama creates narcosis a family idyll, to immediately put a bomb under it. Merel (Thekla Reuten) and husband John (Fedja van Huêt) live with their children in a beautiful house on the edge of forest and heath, where everyone effortlessly finds their way, with each other and alone.

Now Merel and John, son Boris (Sepp Ritsema) and daughter Ronja (Lola van Zoggel) are preparing for a goodbye. John, a professional diver, leaves with colleague Sjoerd (Vincent van der Valk) for South Africa, where they will descend into the infamous Boesmansgat. “You can’t get any closer to the heart of the earth,” John tells Boris, tucking it in.

Moments later, the cinema screen is filled with the darkness of the underwater cave: John disappears into that nothingness, never to return. An image like a black hole.

The feature film debut of director Martijn de Jong, which is also the Dutch Oscar submission, could not have started more compellingly. In addition, you immediately taste something narcosis so successful and poignant: how all elements of the production process are attuned to each other, from Martijn van Broekhuizen’s intimate camera work to Manon Blom’s costume design (both won a Golden Calf at the Netherlands Film Festival). Everything in narcosis makes its own essential contribution to the narration, with Merel’s numb response to the tragedy as the pivot.

A year later, and John’s body still hasn’t surfaced. Merel, who should be an anchor for her children, refuses to face the loss. As a professional medium, she made contact with other people’s loved ones, but she stopped those sessions, afraid that John would visit her. Instead, she runs a tanning salon while refusing all help.

With her magnificent game, also awarded a Golden Calf, Thekla Reuten manages to take you far beyond Merel’s armor. A dam that should keep death away from her beloved, that is. With subtle flashbacks, which sometimes merge with the present, De Jong and screenwriter Laura van Dijk bring the relationship between Merel and John to life. Thanks to Reuten and Huêt’s fine interplay, you feel how unbearable the loss must be for Merel. Don’t miss what De Jong asks of his child actors, but newcomers Van Zoggel and Ritsema make a big impression with their deadly serious, moving interpretation.

The setting of narcosis also proves to be a great asset. What keeps mother, son and daughter together is the house renovated by John, where each space (paranormal or otherwise) contains its own light, sounds and memories. The past breathes everywhere narcosis, to the ice creams that the children once drew on the staircase wall. What happens if Merel puts the house up for sale?

In the last act, De Jong sprinkles rather lavishly with widely orchestrated metaphors, but that doesn’t matter. In a film that believes in itself so unconditionally, it is best to symbolize lightning and thunder.