DROWNING DRY: A (Maybe Too) Understated Tragedy Drama

A lot of European films of recent fame have been about a group of people who take a retreat to some remote area and the drama slowly starts leaking out of their pasts and relationships with each other. Is this stemming from a lack of finances or is this simply a movement where many filmmakers have found a particular formula that allows for almost unlimited iterations to build a narrative out of? Either way, too many of these films play coy, reserve themselves to understated acting, and structure themselves through very predictable events that are supposed to reveal character dynamics to us – mainly through eating together at a table, sitting and drinking, or dancing to some (often American pop) song. Laurynas Bareisa’s Drowning Dry separates itself through its temporal twists, but is in line with many other Euro films like this in how committed it is to its coyness and Hanekean understatement.

Buried in Subtlety

Drowning Dry uses flashbacks to turn a getaway trip involving two couples into a reckoning for a tragic mistake that happens between them. The movie also has a running thread on sacrificing parts of oneself to the benefit of others. One of the couples is Lukas (Paulius Markevičius) and Ernesta (Gelminė Glemžaitė). Lukas is a mixed martial artist who often gets injured and hurt during his matches even though he wins, much to the dismay of Ernesta who is constantly worrying about his safety. Lukas however has also donated organs to another man to save his life, which creates an interesting dynamic between his brute strength, Ernesta’s fears of him and for him, and his compassion and sacrifice. It’s a layered portrayal, but it is constantly veiled under the layers of subtlety and Bareisa is adamant in maintaining throughout the movie.

A Moment Of Great Power and Consequence

The central tragic incident revolves around the other couple, Justė (Agnė Kaktaitė) and Tomas (Giedrius Kiela) whose daughter, Urte (Olivija Eva Vilijüné), nearly drowns in the lake. This incident is structured so that the sequence surrounding it repeats itself. The sequence plays as such – the couples are sitting outside drinking and hanging out on a patio. Tomas challenged Lukas to a scrimmage fight even though Tomas is not a professional and is out of shape. Then Ernesta and Juste dance to an American song. Then the single still shot of the lake. The cut between time periods surrounding the tragedy are what ultimately gie Drowning Dry its power and force the viewer to reconsider various moments within it. The dynamic that initially feels like it’s passive-aggressiveness that bubbles after years of marriage is actually tied to a singular moment that has changed the trajectory of the two couples relationships to each other and themselves.

Conclusion

Bareisa’s use of extended still shots and acutely composed images of characters in dynamic with each other helps the film maintain a constant sense of tension, but the constant necessity to create an astute sense of quietness is what makes the movie feel less than the sum of its parts. Subtlety can be a very powerful thing but when it feels like it’s resisting everything and leading the tension to points of anticlimax it becomes frustrating. Drowning Dry is a movie that is waiting to burst with its emotional weight but finds itself wafting.

Drowning Dry theatrically premiered at the IFC Center in New York on July 18th