“Hombre Mirando al Sudeste.” Until the end of 2016, this film by Argentine magical realist Eliseo Subiela was nearly impossible to find. Now it’s available on DVD. A psychiatrist finds a new patient in the asylum who claims to be from outer space. The robotic visitor is seduced by music and humanity, and he teaches his doctor about compassion and spirit, while the doctor becomes increasingly aware of his own alienation and loss of humanity.

A documentary of the 4-day men’s retreat conducted by volunteers with the Inside Circle Foundation at Folsom State Prison. Based on psychodrama methods used by the ManKind Project, the work is intended to help men strip away their social masks and connect with what’s underneath. The volunteers are often surprised to find that it’s the convicts who help heal them, rather than the other way around. So, both groups of men find redemption.

A lesser-known dramatic Woody Allen film about a middle-aged college professor who overhears a psychoanalyst’s sessions with a female patient who sounds very depressed. The professor resonates with this and winds up in an existential crisis: she begins to realize her life is not as she thought and other people see her very differently than she has seen herself. Also of interest, Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow.

Emotionally exhausting, this play is a classic of psychological abuse and the mutual effort of highly educated people (George and Martha) to break each other down and emotionally dominate each other. The film takes place between 2am and dawn after a faculty party at a small college. A young professor and his wife are trapped with George and Martha, forced to take part in their drama. It captures the brutality and codependency behind the public face of some people, and the anguish and grief that’s even further underneath.

Existential film based on the book by W. Somerset Maugham. A man returns from World War I, traumatized by his experience, and no longer fitting in with his naïve and cynical Gatsby-esque friends. He goes on a journey to find out who he is now, and how to fit into the world. The film is about pain, loneliness, and ultimately letting go of one’s desperate grasp to control life and relationships.

A violent and callous mercenary finds himself in desperate need for forgiveness and redemption for his brutality. He first wants only to run away but then experiences the path of feeling the full weight of his pain and finally being willing to receive the compassion of others, which he finds in a Jesuit priest and the indiginous Guarani of the Amazon. Based loosely on mid-eighteenth century colonial Brazil, this film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, with Robert Deniro as the Gordon Gecko of his time, and Jeremy Irons as Father Gabriel.

A grumpy and opinionated father goes to France to retrieve the ashes of his son who died at the beginning of a trek on the famed Camino de Santiago. Having been judgmental toward his son’s choices (the son is played by Martin Sheen’s real-life son, Emilio Estevez) and moved by his guilt, the father puts on his son’s clothing and walks the Camino as a tribute to him and perhaps as penance. He struggles to maintain his walls and keep others out as he is met by people who keep trying to connect with him and care about him as a fellow traveler. He starts to be able to tolerate the feeling of connection and letting others in, but not without a lot of struggle.

Classic and moving story of depression and alienation in an affluent white family, following the death of an older brother who was the family “star.” Themes of the narcissistic mother, detachment from feelings, profound loneliness, and the presence of a ‘weak father’ are prominent. Conrad, the young protagonist, learns to express his anger and pain that have been smothered under a blanket of guilt, shame, and inadequacy. Possibly the first positive portrayal of a psychotherapist in film. This film appears to be a model for the therapist/patient relationship portrayed in Good Will Hunting.

Fresh is a 12-year-old runner for a drug dealer in the projects. His father (a semi-homeless alcoholic) teaches him life lessons through brutal speed-chess matches. This film honors the bravery and skillful means that a young child can muster in the face of overwhelming odds. The character is a study in how detachment and coldness can become necessary, and strip an adolescent of the joy, lightness, and humanity that could have been there. That single glimmer of grief at the end captures so well what adults who survived being on their own as children can still feel under their hard exterior–and which they struggle to bring to the surface through therapy.

From a reviewer on IMDB.com: “Homecoming is the theme of Garden State. Andrew Largeman [returns to his hometown] to attend the funeral for his mother. While having been gone, Andrew has been on lithium and other forms of anti-depressant medication all prescribed to him by his psychiatrist father. . . Andrew has decided to take a vacation from his medication and take some time to re-connect with himself. From there. . . he connects with old friends and makes new ones and discovers the joys of life and love. . .”

Cult-classic dark comedy about a 17-year-old boy (obsessed with death and upsetting his mother) who falls in love with a free-spirited, car-stealing 79-year old woman who teaches him how to feel, let go of his cynicism, and embrace life. Soundtrack by Cat Stevens.

A long, complex, and upsetting film depicting adult children (William H. Macy, Tom Cruise, and others) who are stuck, depressed, enraged, and struggling to overcome betrayals (mostly by their fathers) in their childhoods. A meditation on how people can live out their lives never being free until they break open the core issues driving their self-destructive behavior.