Film

Zina (1985)

Director: Ken McMullen

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

This revisits the twin 20th century traumas of Revolution and Reich, as witnessed by the self-styled 'good-for-nothing daughter of the most important man of our time', namely Leon Trotsky. 1932 finds him in Turkey rallying forces against Stalin and Hitler, while she, both victim and visionary, lies on a couch in Berlin, where McKellen's neo-Freudian shrink sees her morbid insanity as mirroring a Germany in thrall to Thanatos. Is there more than a coincidental (anagrammatic?) link between Zina's and the Nazis' different madnesses? McMullen isn't entirely convincing, but his elegantly prowling camera, careful compositions, and astute use of locations ranging from Berlin and Blackpool to Lanzarote, create a powerful, onerous mood with much more assurance than the otherwise similar '1919'; and the wild and woolly Giordano, emotions scudding across her face like clouds, is simply magnificent as the volatile Zina.

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