The Rim

Told in elliptical fashion and moving to a surreal rhythm all its own, director Alberto Gracia’s grimy and dazzlingly dissonant vision takes place in the port city of Ferrol in Galicia, the northwestern region of Spain. Damian (Alfonso Míguez), unkempt and barely scraping by, has returned to his hometown after his father dies. Most recently a failed game show contestant, he becomes the inexplicable victim of mistaken identity when everyone starts referring to him as “Cosme”—who happens to be a tour guide who has already disappeared from the movie’s parallel narrative. Both compelling and confounding, The Rim is both an existential portrait of the limits of individual agency and a depiction of a community’s economic struggle.