Don't look now, but those zany Danes are at it again. Not content to just make movies like everyone else, in 1995 Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg conceived the Vow of Chastity, a gimmicky manifesto which required handheld cinematography, forbade the usage of artificial light, and eliminated the director's credit. One of the surprises of the arty Dogme 95 conceit was Lone Scherfig's adorable romantic comedy "Italian for Beginners," and now she, along with screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen ("Mifune"), has concocted Advance Party, a set of rules governing a trilogy of Scotland-set films for which they have fashioned a quartet of characters and handed them off to three debut filmmakers.

English writer-director Andrea Arnold's "Red Road" is the first chapter made along the Advance Party line, and it's a bleak, gripping study of one woman's painstakingly reckless need for justice. When we meet the angular, reticent Jackie (Kate Dickie), she's monitoring a bank of television screens as part of her voyeuristic security job, each image being relayed from various cameras situated around Glasgow's blue-collar Red Road. In the course one evening of watching those who don't know they're being watched, she recognizes a face, and from the way the color exits hers it's obvious the memory is not a pleasant one.

The balance of "Red Road" follows Jackie as she uses her Orwellian advantage to keep tabs on the ginger-haired man, trying to muster up the nerve to confront him... but about what? Snippets of Jackie's life are offered up - edgy family relations, the flash of a wedding ring, joyless rutting with a co-worker - but Arnold's thorough economy with the details allow us to get to know Clyde (magnetic character actor Tony Curran), Jackie's unsuspecting quarry, before we can judge any past actions. Clyde is a father, an ex-con, a loyal friend, and he's developing an eye for the increasingly bold Jackie.

At its basest, "Red Road" falls into the routine revenge flick category, but Arnold transcends this usually vile genre by infusing the target with as much humanity as she affords the vigilante. Naturally we sympathize with Jackie, but as her behavior grows more and more rash, we also feel for Clyde, who's paid for his crime and remains haunted by it. Making her own feature debut is Kate Dickie, turning in a compelling performance as Jackie, her cheerless, unremarkable exterior housing a brokenhearted powderkeg with a dwindling fuse.

Arnold also seems to embrace some of the Dogme 95 aesthetic - natural lighting, verité camerawork, no musical score - and though this purity isn't all that jarring 12 years out, the style nonetheless reinforces the urgent intimacy of her film. With the emphasis on plot and interaction rather than on shooting tactics, it'll be intriguing to see what the other two filmmakers - a Scot and a Dane - bring to the final films of the Advance Party trilogy, but it'll be interesting to see what Arnold does with her exceptional storytelling abilities as well.

Truthfully, I am neither smart nor stoned enough to puzzle out 1973's "The Holy Mountain," boundary-ignoring filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's bizarre, pompous, and campy comment on... um... something, probably. The lavish follow-up to his revered 1970 cult classic "El Topo," "The Holy Mountain" mostly reminded me why it used to be so crucial to get really high and line our coat pockets with beer before staggering, bottles furiously a-clinking, into a midnight movie.

Analyzed in the sunny, clear-headed light of day, "The Holy Mountain" seems to tell the tale of a Christ-like thief who loses his proverbial way, meets up with a mystical mentor (played by Jodorowsky and his cute Chilean accent), and acquires some disciples on a quest to the title peak in pursuit of immortality. Alternately annoying and entertaining, the majority of "The Holy Mountain" is nearly dialogue-free as it sends up consumerism, religion, sex, government, and whatever else you got before ultimately implying that the whole thing was a waste of your time because movies are an illusion. But when birds fly from a wound, chameleons and toads reenact the conquering of Mexico, and a mute makes decisions with the gooey counsel of his mummified wife, it's safe to say that there are less eye-popping ways to spend a couple of sober hours.

"Red Road" (NR), written and directed by Andrea Arnold, screens at the George Eastman House's Dryden Theatre on Saturday, June 23, 8 p.m., and Sunday, June 24, 4:30 p.m. | "The Holy Mountain" (NR), written and directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, screens at the Dryden Theatre on Friday, June 22, 8 p.m., and Sunday, June 24, 7 p.m.