MoviesThe Practice (Movie)Pilgrims (Movie)The Visitor (Movie)The Hypnosis (Movie)Silver Haze (Movie)
This month’s selection includes a deceptively profound Argentine comedy, a beautifully aesthetic Bolivian religious drama, and a Swedish satire on entrepreneurial culture.
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The practice
Rent or buy it on all major platforms.
Over the past four decades, Argentine director Martin Rejtman has produced a body of deceptively profound comedies, the kind that are rarely found in American cinema. Often based on absurd premises, these comedies are low-key but highly intelligent dramas about the tragicomedy of everyday human relationships, quietly surprising you with their sharp analysis of life under contemporary capitalism. His latest film, The Practice, continues that trend.
The central premise almost reads like a comedy routine: Gustavo (Esteban Bigliardi), a yoga teacher in Chile, has separated from his wife and in the process lost his home and studio. As he tries to find a new apartment and continue his yoga practice on the fly, a series of comical complications mount. He tears his meniscus; a new student (with possible substance abuse problems) appears to be stealing from his class; another student, who accuses Gustavo of inappropriate behavior, is injured during an earthquake and loses her memory. Many other characters and plot threads emerge and intersect, while carefully satirizing a world in which self-control is fashionable, but in which people exercise little control over their lives or circumstances.
Pilgrims
Available on Tubi.
[Video: Watch on YouTube.]
A pair of friends, Paulius (Giedrius Kiela) and Indre (Gabija Bargailaite), meet one summer evening and somberly, exchanging only a few words, embark on a strange expedition. They drive around various locations in their provincial Lithuanian town, and Paulius narrates fragments of a gruesome story that unfolds in each place, sometimes recreating scenes. The details take a while to fall into place, but when they do, the full picture hits like a punch to the gut. Paulius’s brother was kidnapped, raped and murdered, and Paulius and Indre — whose relationship to the victim is revealed near the end of Pilgrims — are reminiscing about his final days. Why do they do this? It’s never explicitly stated in Laurynas Bareisa’s stark film, which seethes with unspoken, perhaps unspeakable feelings. We follow the protagonists, hoping for an explanation, a sudden twist or a revelation, but all we find are the harsh facts of an irrevocable loss.
The visitor
Available in Ovid.
[Video: Watch on YouTube.]
Martin Boulocq’s The Visitor is a picture-postcard beauty. The film is set in a small Bolivian village, among mountains dotted with colorful houses and winding streets, and every frame has a dazzling sense of symmetry and precision. Yet this aesthetic beauty also provokes an unsettling feeling, as if it were hiding the messiness of reality. Certainly, The Visitor is about what lies beneath seemingly perfect facades. Humberto (Enrique Aráoz), the protagonist, has just been released from prison and is trying to stabilize himself and reconnect with his daughter, who is in the custody of Humberto’s wealthy white in-laws, who are pastors at an evangelical church. They are, on the surface, pious and benevolent, but there is an undercurrent of violence in their condescending and evasive subtleties. As a quiet power struggle unfolds, Boulocq sculpts a rich drama of class, race, and religion from his modest, melancholy premise.
Hypnosis
Available on Mubi.
[Video: Watch on YouTube.]
Herbert Nordrum, from the acclaimed 2022 film The Worst Person in the World, stars in this odd little Swedish satire that milks the performativity of startup culture to excellent, hilarious comedic effect. Andre (Nordrum) and Vera (Asta Kamma August) prepare to attend Shake Up, a three-day mentoring retreat for startup founders. Their idea is an app that helps, vaguely, with women’s health, and their sales pitch revolves around a personal appeal made by Vera (though clearly scripted and directed by Andre) about the pains of growing up as a woman.
Just before the show, Vera tries hypnotherapy to stop smoking and emerges transformed, though not in the way she expected. No longer submissive and eager to please, she is uninhibited and unpredictable. At first, her behavior is an asset in Shake Up — she’s the real deal! — but when she starts to push all sorts of social boundaries, chaos ensues, especially for uptight Andre, whose desperation to be liked generates its own chilling humor. What begins as a straightforward story about a woman’s self-actualization becomes awkward and gloriously strange, more committed to humor than a moralistic message.
Silver Haze
Available on Tubi.
[Video: Watch on YouTube.]
Every frame of Sacha Polak’s film pulses with rage, grief and pain. Yet it leaves room for remarkable tenderness. The story follows Franky (Vicky Knight), a twentysomething nurse who lives with her siblings and mother in a dysfunctional working-class London home. Years ago, a fire left Franky with burns all over her body and her older brother dead. Her parents split up because of the incident, while mysterious circumstances continue to haunt Franky. Silver Haze traces a volatile love story amid Franky’s tumultuous daily life: when she meets suicidal Florence in her hospital, the two are drawn together like magnets, each yearning to be loved and held. But the romance is sometimes hard to watch, as characters search for answers and escapes that don’t exist. But it’s also beautiful, bathed in shimmering light and color, and unfolds with effervescent naturalism. At its center is Knight’s visceral performance, whose real-life experience of being scarred by a fire as a child informs the narrative.
