Psychopomp
Doom Scroll
•
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.
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