_{Narcosis by Martijn de Jong}

Narcosis, which de Jong co-wrote with his partner Laura van Dijk, chronicles a young family that’s become rudderless after losing their patriarch (Fedja van Huêt’s John) a year earlier during a deep-sea diving expedition. While it’s not an autobiographical story, De Jong and Van Dijk infused the story with plenty of personal details from their own lives. Perhaps the most notable example is that the family matriarch, Merel, portrayed by Dutch actor Thekla Reuten, is a medium, which De Jong’s own mother happens to be. Ultimately, de Jong was relieved when Reuten embraced this particular character detail since clairvoyance is often stigmatized by the Dutch. “In Holland, we have a very pragmatic culture, so it’s almost dangerous to make this film and give [Merel] this ability,” de Jong said during a recent THR Presents panel, powered by Vision Media.

Added Reuten: “I myself have been the client of people who are clairvoyant, and I felt very helped by it. So I was very open to it and very happy that it played such a beautiful and metaphoric part in this film.”

Merel, like her two kids Boris (Sepp Ritsema) and Ronya (Lola van Zoggel), grieves in her own unique way, and instead of using her psychic gift to find out what exactly happened to her husband during his exploration of an underwater cave, she opts to not only shut her ability off, but also shutter her home-based business that brought comfort to many other grieving people. According to de Jong, her character just isn’t ready to come to grips with her profound loss. “There’s no body, and if she sees him with this ability, she’ll know for sure he’s gone,” De Jong says.

Added Reuten: “From researching grief, [I learned] how often one basically gets stuck in the first stage of grief, which is denial. Of course, it’s not rational because she knows that he’s on the bottom of the deepest place on earth. But the completely irrational idea that he might still be alive, she hangs on to that with her life.”

As much as the film deals with life’s most inevitable and unknowable certainty, grief and loss routinely give way to the simple pleasures that make life so rewarding, whether it’s eating a delectable piece of candy or playing a musical instrument. “As human beings, we have a tendency to look away from death, although it’s the one thing we know for sure in life,” Reuten says. “And by confronting it, you end up being so happy to be alive and so thankful to be alive.”

Added De Jong: “It’s easy to overlook the best things in life, the everyday things. One of the best reactions we had after a screening was from someone who said, ‘The only thing I want to do now is just go home and hug my kids.’ We tried to make a hopeful and heartwarming story that makes you embrace the little things in life.

The multilingual Reuten is perhaps best known to American audiences for her role in Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges and her memorable duel with Naveen Andrews on Lost, but as she follows the best material she can find around the world, she admits that Narcosis is all the more satisfying because it originates from her native country. “I’ve never lost sight of my own country because acting in your own language is something that can’t be replaced, as good as you are in other languages,” Reuten shares.

Narcosis is produced by OAK Motion Pictures and international sales are handled by Coccinelle Film Sales. The film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Film Production Incentive. This edition of THR Presents is brought to you by Eye Filmmuseum.
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This interview is from The Hollywood Reporter's THR Presents Q&A series taken by Brian Davids. Click here for the original video and article.