Menkes’ spellbinding, formally inventive first feature follows detached sex worker Ida (Tinka Menkes) through the bars, flophouses and swimming pools of East Los Angeles as she moves inextricably towards an unexpected spiritual awakening. Blending poetry by Anne Sexton, Mary Daly and Gertrude Stein, with allusions to Catholicism and mediaeval witch hunts, this stylish and slow-burning psycho-noir builds to a spectacular denouement.
Martinez, a lonely accountant who really prizes his daily monotony, is pushed by his hierarchy to retire. While his life stability is threatened, his neighbor, a woman of his age, is found dead in her home after several days. Although he has never met her, her death will make him realize that his life is still ahead of him.
Mara (Campbell), a young professor struggling through marriage, only to meet Matt (Johnson), a man from her past who wanders onto her university campus.