Oh Man Magdalena
2023 · 12m · USA
Directed by Ryan Wagner
Tones: melancholic, surreal, tender
A middle-aged woman named Magdalena meets with her therapist; when the session dries up she recounts an encounter with a drug dealer that leads to peculiar breakthroughs, exploring grief, loss, and how the two exist nonlinearly in our day-to-day lives.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Therapy session goes nowhere so she just tells the drug dealer story — and that's the therapy. VHS grief logic. John Getz, of all people, anchors it.
VHS-textured therapist comedy with surreal slippage — Ryan Wagner's commitment to the medium is itself the formal gesture, and it usually pays off.
VHS-textured therapy session that opens a portal into a drug-dealer anecdote functioning as grief mechanism — the format-as-feeling craft is doing exactly what mood pieces should do.