Magdalena Viraga Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Magdalena Viraga Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 5, 2023

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Arbelos' Cinematic Sorceress: The Films of Nina Menkes release.

Nina Menkes is a name many are probably not all that familiar with, but she might be an interesting filmmaker to check out for anyone who has ever felt displaced or on some kind of journey toward "self", since there's a certain mystical quality to Menkes' work that should resonate even for those who aren't particularly fond of some of the "artier" aspects of independent film. Menkes' Jewish parents evidently were able to make it out of Nazi Germany as children, but there's maybe just a slight touch of what has been termed "intergenerational Holocaust trauma" running through her work, at least as a subliminal subtext. While Menkes' Jewish heritage is probably most noticeable in efforts like The Great Sadness of Zohara, which was shot in and around Jerusalem, and Dissolution, which was shot in Jaffa and is in Hebrew, there's a rather fascinating current of spiritually wandering individuals, Jewish or not, throughout many of the features and shorts assembled in this collection by Arbelos. The subjects are actually rather far ranging, and several productions are set in the good old United States, but Menkes has both a deconstructionist ethos (which at times is rather reminiscent of the Nouvelle Vague) combined with an often audacious sense of visuals, which might be best exemplified by the snippets shown on the main menus of the two discs in this collection, with Disc One offering a moment from Queen of Diamonds with a really arresting look at a giant palm tree that is aflame, with two people standing next to it, just gazing off into the distance, and Disc Two offering an equally surreal moment from The Bloody Child, where what looks like a Marine Corps checkpoint or crime scene is suddenly interrupted by a wild horse galloping up the road.

If The Great Sadness of Zohara is one of the films in the Menkes set that most overtly references Menkes' Jewish identity, the fact that Magdalena Viraga boasts a subtitle of The Story of a Red Sea Crossing obviously evokes some Torah imagery, which makes this film's use of Christian iconography all the more provocative. While there actually is (more or less) traditional dialogue in this film, unlike the hallucinogenic sound design in The Great Sadness of Zohara, there's the same disjunctive approach toward standard chronology, with Menkes slicing and dicing her way through various timelines, evidently much as the focal prostitute (once again played by Menkes' sister Tinka) has knifed her pimp, killing him.

Though the "story" (a relatively loose term, mind you) revolves around this murder, Menkes' fractured, deconstructionist approach to the unfolding of events mixes "present" with "past", slowing developing the actual narrative, which is perhaps somewhat irrelevant in any case, since, again much like The Great Sadness of Zohara, this is a portrait of a woman who is isolated and perhaps dissociative, something that's arguably at least a bit better defined here than in The Great Sadness of Zohara, courtesy of several ultimately horrifying/hilarious interstitial sequences of the character in "work mode", meaning she lies there impassively as one client after another has sex with her.

Magdalena Viraga Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Magdalena Viraga is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arbelos with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.34:1. Perhaps surprisingly, Arbelos doesn't offer a wealth of technical information on any of the transfers in this set, and in fact several films aren't mentioned at all in the technical information. That said, the following generic verbiage about this film is included in the insert booklet:

Magdalena Viraga was restored in 2K by Arbelos Films and the Academy Film Archive. Co-presented with EOS World Fund. Audio restoration and mastering by Audio Mechanics.

While the IMDb offers the data point that theatrical prints were 35mm, those were obviously blow-ups, since Menkes' own site offers the probably obvious fact that this was another 16mm production. While this arguably has more consistently developed detail levels than The Great Sadness of Zohara, it has the same kind of cool blue undertone at times that the other film did, and unfortunately this presentation shows some noticeable flicker throughout a lot of the running time. The grittiness of the smaller format element probably only supports the seedy, grimy ambience of the entire story. A number of close-ups offer appealing fine detail on fabrics or even facial features. Grain is understandably heavy and can be slightly yellow and pixellated looking.

Magdalena Viraga Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Magdalena Viraga features an LPCM Mono track that delivers this film's pretty basic sound design without any major problems, though there is a discernable background hum that can be heard in some of the film's ostensibly quieter moments. This has some of the occasionally more psychedelic effects that are part and parcel of The Great Sadness of Zohara, but this is more of a dialogue driven film than that enterprise, and all spoken material is rendered without any issues. Optional English subtitles are available.

Magdalena Viraga Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Arbelos has packaged this release with three films per disc, with some "general interest" supplements on both discs, so I'm offering the complete list of supplements here, which may or may not be specific to this particular film.

Disc One

• Nina Menkes in conversation with Mike Plante (HD; 25:55)


• Cards on the Table (HD; 11:33) is a kind of cool visual essay linking Menkes' work to the Tarot, which itself has Kabbalistic links.


• Queen of Diamonds Trailer (HD; 1:44)


• Commentary on The Great Sadness of Zohara is by Nina Menkes.


• Commentary on Magdalena Viraga is by Nina Menkes.

Disc Two

• Nina Menkes in Conversation with Ann Hornaday (HD; 31:27)


• Nina Menkes in Conversation with K.J. Relth-Miller (HD; 27:34)


• The Bloody Child Trailer (HD; 1:13)


• Cinematic Sorceress: Retrospective Trailer (HD; 1:57)


• Short film: The Lioness (HD; 2:00)


• Commentary on Phantom Love is by Nina Menkes.


• Commentary on Dissolution is by Nina Menkes.

Magdalena Viraga Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Nina Menkes seems to delight in deconstructing expected narrative structures, and so those coming to this film had best get ready for nonlinear "story" telling. The claustrophobically disturbing environment of this film can't be escaped, one way or the other. Technical merits are generally solid, given an understanding of the source element. This isn't an "easy" watch, but it's often viscerally unnerving. Recommended.