aberrance

The language Americans use for the murders of women by men leans heavily on aberrance and singularity — men who murder women have “snapped,” they are “evil,” they are “disaffected outsiders.”

The festival’s Midnighters section is an eclectic bunch with Mongolian pic “Aberrance,” from debut filmmaker Baatar Batsukh, and a trio of Australian fare: the 1970s-set “Late Night With the Devil,” starring David Dastmalchian; alien conspiracy pic “Monolith,” with Lily Sullivan; and “Talk to Me,” a buzzy supernatural debut from YouTube stars and brothers Danny and Michael Philippou that will first bow at Sundance this month.

For as long as he can remember, Baer believed that being gay was an aberrance — and that to indulge it would lead to a lonely death.

It is a tally of aberrance that we perform in our darkest hours, when families of origin and childhood friends remind us, yet again, of our undeniable difference.

Although she represents Trump as an aberrance in the history of American governance, Ben-Ghiat does not shy away from revealing America’s role in enabling dictatorships around the world — from propping up Mussolini with bank loans and foreign investment, to training Pinochet’s torturers at the Army’s School of the Americas, to selling arms to Gaddafi and elevating numerous authoritarian leaders during the military-coup age of the Cold War’s nadir.