Celestial Wives of Meadow Mari

Who needs a plot when you can have a zombie assassin, a catatonic nude dance party, and a rare bird living in a vagina? In this rustically erotic series of vignettes, a total of twenty-four young women are subjected to an encyclopedic list of baroque rituals and rural superstitions that tend to be exacted upon their bare skin and/or lady parts, because it’s all part of becoming a woman, or something. Despite all the creepy, barnyard sexiness and occasional humor, the film is mostly tedious and disappointingly misogynistic. (NATHANIEL DEINES)