The Bloody Child Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

The Bloody Child 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.

Some might assume that basing the underlying story here on a reportedly true event would push Nina Menkes into more of a traditional narrative idiom, but probably unsurprisingly that turns out to be most definitely not the case. The "ripped from the headlines" aspect of this film comes courtesy of a real life (and/or death) tale of a United States Marine who, perhaps suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, returned from active duty and promptly murdered his wife, attempting to bury her in the Mojave Desert, where he was discovered and arrested during a routine patrol. Menkes' work often focuses on alienated females, and I guess you could argue there's no female more "alienated" than a wife who's just been murdered, but this time Menkes' sister Tinka plays a character who isn't so much alienated as not being paid attention to, as she's a female Marine investigating the case, dealing with some arguably slightly unruly underlings.

That brief summary may make it sound like The Bloody Child is straightforward, but it most certainly is not. This is a film built on repetition, with frequent interruptions from other repeated material, none of which makes much sense in a traditional way. There's also some patently odd footage that seems to feature Menkes in another film entirely, including scenes apparently in North Africa and some really gonzo material with her (or what appears to be her) naked and covered in white chalkish makeup in a forest, attempting to read some weird tattoo on her arm. In other words, it's another Nina Menkes film.

The underlying tenet here seems grounded in the perception that aggregations like the Marines tend to foster a "boys will be boys" mentality, until those "boys" end up murdering their spouses, but the film attempts to blend in any number of other surreal elements, including numerous allusions to Macbeth. Unless I'm mistaken, Lady Macbeth would hardly seem to be a paradigm of an "alienated female", at least in the way Menkes usually proffers. This is both riveting and frustrating in about equal measure, and may be an example of Menkes' metaphorical and/or referential reach eluding her grasp.

The Bloody Child Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Bloody Child 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.

This presentation is probably unavoidably heterogeneous looking since it seems to be cobbled together from both 35mm and 16mm sources (an intuition that is supported by the IMDb). A lot of the Marine material is sharp as a tack and clear as a bell, to speak, albeit suffused with a kind of weird peach like undertone, especially in a lot of the outdoor material at the arrest site. The interpolated material, much of which features Menkes, has a much grittier 16mm appearance with less consistent fine detail levels. Some low light material in the 16mm segments is undeniably rough looking. Detail levels in the 35mm sequences are typically excellent.

The Bloody Child Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While the IMDb actually lists a mono track for this film, it sure sounded to me like the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track on this disc is stereo, especially during some of the hallucinogenic voiceovers featuring a childlike little girl quoting Macbeth, where, unless I'm just hearing things, it sounded like some quotes were isolated in either the left or right channel. One way or the other, this is another totally hallucinogenic sound design from Menkes, one which almost deliberately avoids traditional dialogue scenes, with salient examples being not only the recurrent Macbeth voiceovers, but also a conceit whereby a lot of the arrest material is handled "from a distance", so that nothing can really be made out clearly. It's all by design, I would argue, and the result is another completely distinctive and weirdly hypnotic soundtrack for a Menkes film. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Bloody Child 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.

The Bloody Child Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The "conversations" on this disc included as supplements get into the "ripped from the headlines" part of this story, but they perhaps don't adequately explain Menkes' completely odd, and some might argue off putting, choices with this film. The Bloody Child pretty much demands complete surrender, which may in fact be Menkes in proto-feminist mode, subliminally taunting any males in particular coming to this film with a "who's in charge now?" mentality. Technical merits are generally solid, and with caveats noted, Recommended.