By Devika Girish
In this month’s picks, a yoga teacher in Argentina adjusts to life after divorce, a young woman in London struggles to move past her painful past and more.
‘The Practice’
Argentine director Martín Rejtman has accumulated a body of deceptively profound comedies over the past four decades, the likes of which are hard to find in American cinema. Often spiraling out of absurd premises, they are low-key but whip-smart dramas about the tragicomedy of everyday human relations, which sneak up on you with their sharp analysis of life under modern-day capitalism. His latest, “The Practice,” follows in this vein.
The central premise almost sounds like a sketch or a gag: Gustavo (Esteban Bigliardi), a yoga teacher in Chile, has separated from his wife and has lost custody of his home and his studio. As he tries to find a new apartment and continue his yoga practice on the go, a series of comical complications piles up. He tears his meniscus; a new student (with possible substance-abuse issues) seems to be stealing from his class; another student, who accuses Gustavo of inappropriate behavior, is injured during an earthquake and loses her memory. Multiple other plot and character threads emerge and intertwine, each satirizing with rich detail a world in which self-mastery is all the fashion, yet people exert little control over their lives or circumstances. (Rent or buy it on major platforms.)
‘Pilgrims’
Two friends, Paulius (Giedrius Kiela) and Indre (Gabija Bargailaite), meet on a summer afternoon and somberly, with few words exchanged, embark on a strange expedition. They drive to several spots around their provincial Lithuanian hometown, and Paulius narrates pieces of a gruesome story that unfolded at each location, sometimes reenacting scenes. It takes a little while for all the details to add up, but when they do, the full picture lands like a punch to the gut. Paulius’ brother was kidnapped, raped and murdered, and Paulius and Indre — whose relationship with the victim is revealed late in “Pilgrims” — are retracing his final days. Why are they doing this exercise? It’s never stated explicitly in Laurynas Bareisa’s stark, matter-of-fact film, which simmers with unspoken — perhaps unspeakable — feelings. We follow along with the protagonists, hoping for an explanation, a sudden twist or a revelation, but all there is to find are the hard facts of an irrevocable loss. (Stream it on Tubi.)
‘The Visitor’
There’s a picture-perfect prettiness to Martín Boulocq’s “The Visitor.” The movie is set in small-town Bolivia, amid mountains dotted with colorful homes and winding streets, and each frame has a breathtaking sense of symmetry and precision to it. Yet this aesthetic beauty provokes a sense of uneasiness, too, as if it is concealing the messiness of reality. Indeed, “The Visitor” is about what lies underneath seemingly perfect facades. Humberto (Enrique Aráoz), the protagonist, has just been released from prison and is trying to get back on his feet and reconnect with his daughter. She is in the custody of Humberto’s wealthy, white in-laws, who are pastors at an Evangelical church. They are, by all appearances, pious and beneficent, but there is an undercurrent of violence to their condescending and evasive niceties. As a quiet power struggle ensues, Boulocq sculpts a rich drama of class, race and religion from his modest, melancholic premise. (Stream it on Ovid.)
‘The Hypnosis’
Herbert Nordrum from the acclaimed 2022 film “The Worst Person in the World” stars in this strange little Swedish satire that milks the performativity of startup culture to excellent cringe-comedy effect. Andre (Nordrum) and Vera (Asta Kamma August) are preparing to attend Shake Up, a three-day coaching retreat for startup founders. Their idea is an app that helps, vaguely, with women’s health, and their pitch hinges on a personal appeal made by Vera (though clearly scripted and directed by Andre) to the pains of growing up female.
Right before the pitch, Vera tries out hypnotherapy to help her quit smoking, and emerges changed, though not in the ways she expected. No longer meek or eager to please, she’s uninhibited and unpredictable. Her behavior initially proves an asset at Shake Up — she’s authentic! — but when she starts to cross all manner of social boundaries, chaos ensues, especially for the buttoned-up Andre, whose desperation to be liked generates its own squirm-inducing humor. What starts as a somewhat straightforward tale about a woman’s self-actualization becomes something uncomfortably, gloriously weirder, committed more to the bit than to any moralistic message. (Stream it on Mubi.)
‘Silver Haze’
Each frame of Sacha Polak’s film pulsates with rage, grief and pain, and yet makes room for remarkable tenderness. The story traces Franky (Vicky Knight), a nurse in her 20s, who lives in a dysfunctional home in working-class London with her siblings and mother. Years ago, a fire left Franky with burns all over her body and killed her older brother. Her parents split over the incident, while its mysterious circumstances continue to torment Franky. “Silver Haze” traces a volatile love story in the midst of Franky’s tumultuous everyday: When she meets the suicidal Florence at her hospital, the two are drawn together like magnets, each of them yearning to be loved and held. But romance is sometimes hard to watch, as the characters flail for answers and escapes that don’t exist. But it’s also beautiful, bathed in glowing light and colors, and unfolding with an effervescent naturalism. At its center is a raw performance by Knight, whose real-life experiences of being scarred in a fire as a child inform the narrative. (Stream it on Tubi.)
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