Nathaniel Box, a self-styled prophet, along with his daughter Barbara and her fiancé Curtis, holds a night time press conference in an underground car park, devoutly believing that "a new Messiah for a New Age" will appear there before dawn - and their wait does not go unrewarded.
Imagine a surreal narrative, without dialogue, in a style reminiscent of the 1920s silent era and seen through the lens of moving voyeuristic camera that records the odd whereabouts of an unseemly group of marginal tenants.
Something very common in our days, an adolescent who does not find communication with her mother or stepfather falls into a depression that drags her down paths of difficult return.
Writes Viola: "Sodium Vapor was recorded over a period of several weeks in the hours between one and five in the morning on the streets of an industrial area in lower Manhattan.
Jessica's promising debut as a young artist is shattered by a sudden and violent death. She escapes into a restless succession of journeys whose encounters along the way bring humour, some comfort, but also danger.