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When, in the opening minutes of Natatorium, a fresh-faced teen arrives at a blocky modernist showplace of a house, it seems she’s checking in to a swanky Airbnb. But the well-appointed dwelling, where an oppressively dark glacial blue predominates, turns out to be the unwholesome home of the grandparents she hasn’t seen in years. Estrangement and silence are the guiding principles within this hermetically sealed universe, which, as the title of Helena Stefánsdóttir’s drama indicates, contains an indoor swimming pool. “Don’t go into the basement” would be a handy subtitle. Not that the upper floors offer much refuge.

In a movie that ultimately centers on a trinity of female kin at cross-purposes — visiting Lilja, her formidable grandmother and moderately rebellious aunt — the 18-year-old outsider is the catalyst for the revelations and unraveling to come. Traveling from her island home, Lilja (Ilmur María Arnarsdóttir) arrives in the city by bus,...

The Notebook is covering Cannes with an on-going correspondence between critic Leonardo Goi and editor Daniel Kasman.A White, White DayDear Danny,Among the many veteran’s tips you gave me on our first Cannes rendezvous was a polite reminder to fish for gems outside the red-carpeted slots of the official competition, and yesterday I heeded the call, queuing for my first screening at the Critics’ Week, Hlynur Pálmason’s A White, White Day. It was not the first time I stumbled into the Icelandic 34-year-old. Back in Locarno, in 2017, I’d been able to catch his debut feature, the visceral study of masculinity and festival darling Winter Brothers. And if the latter had heralded the Reykjavik-native as new name to reckon with, his new film only adds more evidence to the director's talent.Having lost his wife in a car accident, police chief Ingimundur processes grief by channeling all...