Terror, mystery in riveting ‘Day Night’

The most profound thing the remarkably dread-filled drama “Day Night Day Night” tells us is what it doesn’t tell us. Off a bus from who knows where comes a nameless, hollow-eyed 19-year-old (Luisa Williams), fully committed to ending her life as a suicide bomber in Times Square. In her prayer-like mumblings, she has dedicated her death to someone -- Allah? Jesus? An old boyfriend? It doesn’t matter to writer-director Julia Loktev, nor should it to her audience: Once someone has become incapable of doubt, they’ve probably become stupid, but they’ve certainly become dangerous.

In this regard, all terrorists are the same, and as the unnamed girl goes through her ritualistic cleansing and instruction by anonymous masked men, that terrible fact becomes paramount.

Loktev, using Williams’ face the way Carl Dreyer used Falconetti’s in “The Passion of Joan of Arc,” provokes in her audience an involuntary shudder, because we realize that whether an act is madness or inspiration really depends on what side of the bomb you’re on.

“Day Night Day Night.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes. Exclusively at Laemmle’s Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869; One Colorado, 42 Miller Alley (inside plaza, Fair Oaks Avenue at Union Street), Pasadena, (626) 744-1224.