How peculiar that movies are surprisingly insulated experiences — be it inside an auditorium or on a laptop, no matter how powerful or life changing. As I sat in the Virginia Theatre with over 1,000 other audience members during last Friday’s Ebertfest, we were separated from reality, caught up in worlds other than our own as the rest of the nation fixated over the hunt of Boston’s bombing suspects.

But Ebertfest’s Friday lineup, strangely enough, carried the same manic energy and sustaining dread of the country’s recent events. And not just for some of the “upstanding old-timers” visiting from Peoria, Ill., who told me they found Thursday night’s “Bernie” — a great dark comedy, albeit the light side of gray — “too gruesome.” If only I had found them again to hear their takes on the lead characters of Friday’s lineup: a hopeless drug addict, exiled elders and an alcoholic, gun-toting Tilda Swinton (who appeared in person at the festival, but without any bullets or beer).

“Oslo, August 31st” opened Friday’s Ebertfest at 1 p.m. with one of the most unsettling scenes I had seen shown in the festival at that point. A man walks from his small apartment at dawn to a forest nearby, his head down with an impenetrable expression. Even in daylight, shadows fill over his eyes. The man reaches a lake and begins to fill his pockets with rocks, and then tentatively walks into the body of water.

The title refers to the film’s setting, a city in Norway, where the man grew up. His name is Anders, a recovering 34-year-old drug addict, who spent his youth partying, scamming his friends and wasting nearly all of his parents’ money. On August 31, he’s allowed a day’s leave from rehab for a job interview in Oslo, but Anders has more important things on his mind — apologies, reconnections and some things far worse. Anders eventually pulls himself up from the lake, but as the film progresses, we realize his time in rehab has only cemented some of the problems that made him turn to drugs.

“Oslo, August 31st” is hardly easy viewing, especially with a large audience. The day we spend with Anders is not optimistic, but forlorn. Although he’s remained sober for 10 months, he knows he will remain a lost, broken soul. He thinks that it is too late to start over, that he has reached the point when things cannot ever get better. Listening to others around him, he realizes that Oslo and the rest of the world has moved on without him.

But “Oslo” is powerful and captivating, a look inside the dopamine-depleted head of an addict. It is certainly unsettling, but the movie is brutally perceptive as well. Anders confesses to a friend that his first impulse outside rehab was to buy drugs, and he admits this blankly without much shame or guilt. Some hopeful signals present themselves — considerate friends, a chance to leave Oslo — but he knows where they will all lead. The last scene bothered many in the crowd, but it was perceived by viewers with a sense of understanding.

Equally tragic but in an entirely different form, “The Ballad of Narayama” played after “Oslo” in a brand-new digitally restored print, according to retired film scholar David Bordwell, who led the “Ballad” discussion panel. Made in 1958, the Japanese film tells the story of a rural village that exiles its elders to meet their final resting place on Mount Narayama. Orin, a dutiful grandmother, does her best to prepare for her final year in the village and leave her family in good shape so that she can willfully die with some semblance of peace.

Unlike the bleak, numbing realism of Anders’ life in “Oslo,” “Ballad” is heavily stylized and full of color (After the screening, Bordwell said that it was filmed on over a dozen sound stages). In the tradition of Japanese theater, much of the film plays out like an extended melody, with a narrator singing over various segments. Like Anders, Orin is certain of her future, but instead carries out her final months diligently, amid family heartbreak and asphyxiating social stigmas.

Orin and her family are treated cruelly throughout “Ballad,” but the film is ultimately redeeming in its own unique way; one of the film’s final scenes is its most touching. Orin’s son returns home from Mount Narayama and breaks down to his wife, promising her that when they come of age, they will travel up the mountain together.

Friday felt long enough after the last two films, and I admittedly felt a bit burned out. I needed to walk around, stretch or — better yet — take a much-needed nap after those lugubrious journeys.

But I still knew to run back and save my seat for the last film of the day. Soon, Tilda Swinton presented herself to the crowd, and her applause rivaled Chaz Ebert’s on opening night. Back after her first appearance at Ebertfest in 2011, Swinton arrived this year with “Julia.” Before the film, her words were gracious, but essentially quick: “Buckle yourself in.”

She was right, but more to the point, so was I. I could have used that nap. Swinton plays the title character in “Julia,” which thrives on the audience’s nerves, heightening the tension scene after scene. Swinton plays an alcoholic wreck who only manages to wake up each morning so that she can stumble back to her decrepit hotel apartment with someone else. Swinton goes for broke in the role, baring all in “Julia’s” reprehensible world of back-alley bars and fluorescent lights.

At an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, she meets Anna, a woman who wants Julia to help her kidnap her son from her criminal father-in-law. Strange as it sounds, Julia accepts an offer of $20,000 and signs on. However, the narcissist that she is, Julia sees this as an even greater opportunity for more money. She decides to double-cross Anna and raise the ransom.

But not everything goes to plan for Julia, and she’s led by her wits for the next two-and-a-half hours as everything around her falls apart. “Julia” is extremely violent and vulgar, and even Swinton’s character is held together only by lies and filth. If cigarettes or booze were not near her mouth, a set of insults and indignation streamed out. Her hostility hides a life of self-loathing, but her catastrophic journey offers her some redemption. God forbid how most of Friday night’s crowd sat through it.

Swinton’s discussion after “Julia” was, at least, more pleasant than the film. She jokingly apologized for its existence. After a round of personal anecdotes on her life and career, she noted that a lot of Ebertfest’s line-up dealt with heavy issues of mortality. Many of the festival’s attendants discussed this as well; New York Magazine and Vulture TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz said it was almost as if Ebert had planned his own memorial. 

I agree with Seitz’s theory, although it may be unfair if many view his idea with sorrow. Whatever the motivations behind Ebert’s selections, this year — like any other — displays his enthusiasm for an endless range of films. Even among the most dismal, he found something worth watching. However heavy Friday’s films were, they display a film’s transformative power. I was shocked, moved and even angered. And for that, I am grateful for Ebertfest.

Adlai can be reached at [email protected].