Psychopomp
From the Archives
•
30-Mar-2016
In Greek mythology a psychopomp is a being--god, spirit, or animal--that ushers souls into the underworld. In Loni Paone & Cooper Vacheron’s short film, psychopompitry is a decidedly aboveground craft, a blend of New Age healing and homebrew gadgetry that resembles hydraulically-assisted reiki, or maybe full contact aromatherapy, or whatever the opposite of sense-deprivation is. Allie and Ino (Allie Wittner and Ino Badanjak) are two such DIY lightworkers sharing a home and joint practice. Instead of safe passage across the river Styx, they offer “creative catharsis,” a shortcut to satori made possible by the ancient and revered power of getting weird. Just because their days are spent brewing up existential cure-alls doesn’t mean they’re above the more mundane struggles of the modern housemate: the borrowed food, the passive-aggressive notes, the smothering togetherness enforced by a shared lease and insufficient square footage. Caught between them is Allie’s docile boyfriend (co-writer/director Vacheron), variously conscripted as third wheel, peacemaker, and contested prize. As the feuding psychopompists soon learn, not even their most inspired quackery can exempt them from the required negotiations--between friendship, necessity, ambition, and affection--and the resolutely un-hallucinatory task of letting the small stuff slide. -Jonathan Kieran.
Up Next in From the Archives
-
The Letter
A little girl receives a letter from Santa Claus in this short and sweet holiday film from director Eric Paschal Johnson, co-director of “Observatory Blues”. Over a series of richly melancholic 16mm compositions of a young girl lugging a Christmas tree through fields and forests, Santa narrates a...
-
Things I Like About You
Shot in New York, L.A., Moscow, and Paris, this portrait of the young and free is an appealingly raw glimpse into the joys and struggles of love. The mixed-format filming keeps the visuals fresh and the perspective deeply personal. Structured around four stages of a relationship — the meeting, th...
-
Someone's In Here
A man is caught with his pants down when terrorized by a force outside his bathroom stall. “Someone’s In Here,” directed by Ben Kitnick, is a horror vignette, minimal, well-executed and open for metaphorical interpretation. A man dressed in Khakis, a polo, and a fleece vest, takes care of busines...