1/3

A young Buddhist monk (Velon) who spends his days drawing pictures in Washington Square Park and his evenings meditating in his St. Marks Place apartment becomes obsessed with his next-door neighbor (Gitelman), a teenage S&M prostitute, in this intriguing directorial debut from Yongman Kim (of Kim’s Video). The film was shot on location in the East Village and teems with the neighborhood’s sights and sounds, but it hardly qualifies as realism: Eschewing dialogue in favor of a dense, multilayered soundtrack, 1/3 finally reveals itself as a parable on the ethical perils of the contemplative life. (Opens Fri; Village East.) — Joshua Land