10/08/2024 - Lithuanian director Laurynas Bareiša’s second feature thrusts us into the intimacy of fragile characters who are trying to piece themselves back together following a terrible tragedy

After his powerful debut feature, Pilgrims [+see also:
film review
interview: Laurynas Bareisa
film profile], which triumphed in Venice’s Orizzonti section, Lithuanian director Laurynas Bareiša is presenting his second majestic feature, Drowning Dry [+see also:
trailer
interview: Laurynas Bareiša
film profile], in the Locarno Film Festival’s International Competition. A cruel yet poetic tale of two families faced with a tragedy which changes their lives forever, the film is constructed through a series of sequences shots enhanced by delicate and nigh-on imperceptible zooms which invite us into the characters’ intimate worlds. Drowning Dry confronts us with memory and with a trauma which each of the characters try to process in their own way in order to move forwards or simply to protect themselves from a reality that’s too hard to accept.

Ernesta (Gelminė Glemžaitė) is passing the weekend with her family and that of her sister Juste (Agnė Kaktaitė) in a house in the country which we learn belongs to their parents. After her husband Lukas’ victory in a mixed martial arts tournament, Ernesta needs to de-stress in the company of her sister, surrounded by nature. The two families spend the days swimming in the lake, relaxing and chatting about this and that, as if they had no cares in the world. After an accident which is as tragic as it is unexpected, the two sisters suddenly find themselves facing life as single mothers. Drowning Dry follows their daily lives in the aftermath of this tragedy, highlighting the extent to which trauma can influence memories and how every little detail can become a trigger for repressed emotions.

Even before their lives were definitively upended, a tragic event had already rocked their seemingly banal everyday lives. One of the sisters’ daughters almost died in the small lake near her house and was miraculously saved by her uncle. Elated once the little girl regained consciousness, the various members of the family gradually seemed to return to their lives. But what exactly did that terrifying event trigger? What repressed traumas and fears did it bring to the surface? Shown twice, from two different yet similar perspectives, this traumatic event has imprinted itself onto the minds of our protagonists like a tattoo which refuses to be removed, an alarm bell of a tragedy yet to come which will prove impossible to escape. Dry drowning (as per the film’s title) - a rare complication of drowning which develops when water enters the lungs, a rare event with serious consequences - is pivotal in this film; not only does it act as a narrative device, it’s also a linchpin for the entire story, triggering a bigger trauma which seems to germinate in the protagonists’ bodies and minds.

In this his most recent feature film, Laurynas Bareiša presents characters grappling with a trauma which is devouring them from the inside, accepting that their sorrow might never disappear. The repetition of the same scene from multiple viewpoints helps us to understand how subjective, fragile and malleable memory can be. The moment when one of the two young protagonists picks up the pieces of the terracotta statues which she’d previously broken with the help of her cousin is crucial in this sense. In Drowning Dry, the protagonists are trying to piece back together an existence which has been dramatically tested, paths truncated by an accident which has changed their trajectories forever. Drowning Dry is a wonderfully destabilising film hiding an ever-burning emotional fire beneath a layer of sophisticated sang-froid.

Drowning Dry was produced by afterschool production (Lithuania) in co-production with Trickster Pictures (Latvia), and is sold worldwide by Alpha Violet.

(Translated from Italian)