Queen of Diamonds Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Queen of Diamonds 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.

In the "this should surprise nobody who's been paying attention thus far (to the other films in the Menkes set)" department, Queen of Diamonds offers Nina Menkes' sister Tinka as an alienated, unnamed female in a loosely knit together series of vignettes which may or may not suggest a coherent story. For those with somewhat jaded sensibilities, the character in this film endures something akin to the same sense of futility and monotony in her work life that Tinka's character in Magdalena Viraga did, though perhaps just slightly comically, this time she's a blackjack dealer instead of a prostitute. This is another Menkes film that relies on rather long sequences without much (or in fact any) dialogue, and as such, it's perhaps notable that the first line in this film is Tinka's character asking an elderly man (a relative?) for whom she provides care, "Are you in pain?" Menkes' films are almost always about pain in some form or fashion, and the central character here, despite the differences in context, is very much in line with other focal women Tinka portrays in some of her sister's other films.

In terms of intermittent dialogue with a ton of subtext, when Tinka's character waits at a bus stop in Vegas one evening, a man sits next to her and asks, "Are you OK?", yet another probably needless "check in" considering the emotional upheaval which seems to be occurring despite (or maybe because of) an almost unbearable sense of stasis. There are hints of sidebar stories here, including the elderly patient and a missing person, but what's fascinating about Queen of Diamonds is how it blends the almost mundane everyday (and/or night) elements with an almost magical realist sensibility that suffuses things with a generally mystical quality, something that is again reminiscent of both The Great Sadness of Zohara and Magdalena Viraga. Those interested might want to think about the supplement on the Tarot included on this disc, as those "in the know" will be aware the the contemporary suit of Diamonds sprang from Tarot's Pentacles or Disks.

Queen of Diamonds Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Queen of Diamonds is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arbelos with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. 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:

Queen of Diamonds and The Bloody Child were restored in 4K courtesy of the Academy Film Archive and the Film Foundation, with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Co-presented with EOS World Fund. Audio restoration and mastering by Audio Mechanics.

The uptick in detail and nuance of saturation courtesy of a 35mm source is immediately apparent in this presentation when compared to the 16mm source elements for both The Great Sadness of Zohara and Magdalena Viraga. Fine detail is typically excellent throughout the presentation, and is immediately noticeable in such things as the textures on the linen seen in the film's very first shot (see screenshot 2). There are some very minor passing deficits in shadow detail and fine detail in some of the nighttime material, and maybe even arguably a bit in some of the more dimly lit casino scenes, but this is an appealingly organic looking transfer that beautifully supports some surreal but stunning imagery.

Queen of Diamonds Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Queen of Diamonds features LPCM 2.0 Mono audio that has a bit more to work with at least in terms of source cues than either The Great Sadness of Zohara or Magdalena Viraga. There are still some quasi-hallucinatory aspects to the sound design where supposedly commonplace background noises almost assume a somewhat sinister ambience, but this film also has at least a smattering of more traditional dialogue moments than The Great Sadness of Zohara in particular. Ambient environmental sounds in any number of outdoor scenes also help support the story, and all dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly. Optional English subtitles are available.

Queen of Diamonds 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.

Queen of Diamonds Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Despite the linking elements I kind of jokingly referred to above, each and every Nina Menkes film in this collection is decidedly sui generis in its own way, and that's certainly the case with regard to Queen of Diamonds. The "ordinary" world starts to morph into something "other" in this peculiar and distinctive effort, which won't be for everyone, to say the least. Technical merits are generally solid, and for those wanting a decidedly different viewing (and listening) experience, Queen of Diamonds comes Recommended.