Film

Outsider provocateur Rick Alverson (The Comedy, BAMcinemaFest 2012) returns with another hypnotic, surreal odyssey into the dark side of the American psyche. Set in a despairing, Edward Hopper-esque vision of 1950s America, The Mountain follows Andy (Tye Sheridan), a taciturn teenage Zamboni operator who, following the death of his father, begins working with the mysterious Dr. Wallace Fiennes (Jeff Goldblum, weaponizing his idiosyncratic charm to sinister effect), a libidinous lobotomist who peddles a most ghoulish “cure.” Featuring synchronized ice skating routines, spacey xylophone-set dance numbers, and supporting turns by cult icons Udo Kier and Denis Lavant, The Mountain is an eerie, enigmatic fable that envisions postwar America not as a land of promise but as a graveyard of dreams.

Q&A with filmmaker Rick Alverson