Phantom Love

Andrei Tarkovsky tells us that a teacher wrote the following about his film Mirror (1974):

"The film itself lifts the spell of silence and enables one to free one's spirit from the anxieties and trivia that weigh us down…showing the true, instead of the false, values of the world; making every object play a part; making every detail of the picture into a symbol; building up to a philosophical statement through an extraordinary economy of means; filling every frame with poetry and music." (p. 11, Sculpting in Time)

Thirty-three years later, this also describes the power of Nina Menkes' new feature, Phantom Love. Combining the real and surreal in daring ways, the film blurs the distinctions between the two to tell the story of an alienated woman's inner, spiritual awakening. Structured to reflect the main character, Lulu's internal conflicts, one experiences Phantom Love the way one experiences life—going in and out of dreams and nightmares to assemble one's own reality.

The film merges human and animal worlds in with great focus and heart, mesmerizing us by a dream about a swimming Octopus, and imprinting in our memories other wise creatures like a clairvoyant Cat, mysterious Snake, swarm of Bees, magical Horses, and fragile Moth clinging to a lampshade. The black and white style symbolizes the transcendental approach of the film—primal, stripped to the bone, and made bare to take us deeper into Lulu's story with light, shadow, and grain. Synthesizing documentary shooting with dream-like, fairytale imagery, Menkes roams through the psychic closets of her characters, and in the process asks us to do the same for ourselves. Phantom Love is pure cinema, reminiscent of the transformative films of Bergman, Antonioni, Cocteau, and Tarkovksy.

Tapping into the metronome of Lulu's everyday encounters, Phantom Love plunges into its heroine's subconscious to expose the narratives that strangle and trap her—narratives that concern the destructive aspects of Lulu's relationship with her mother and sister, which consequently affect her ability to love and be loved. Few filmmakers have depicted mother/ daughter and sister/sister dynamics with such depth. Nina Menkes artfully presents these relationships as intense ties, which are difficult to cut, impossible to erase, ridden with guilt, and are an endless cycle of resembling reflections. These internal struggles confront and relate to the images of war and destruction on Lulu's television. The distance between Lulu and her TV begins to disappear as the film progresses, eventually culminating in a levitation sequence where Lulu's body explodes, much like the bombs she sees devastating the Middle East. She floats above her bed then looks right at us through the film screen—asking us, if we too feel the same way. Directly following this chilling, but totally courageous moment, Lulu's own nightmares are mirrored in the TV, with the image of a little girl running for her life in a vacant battleground.

Phantom Love moves through darkness to find a light so strong it consumes the last frame of the film—we see visions of serenity, fluidity, and strength as Lulu begins her journey to a new, renewing place on the other side of a mystical bridge.

Nina Menkes' surrealist film, Phantom Love, starts without any hint of stillness. Black and white images. Beautifully framed. Body parts, moving back and forth. Like a mantra. Hypnotic. Are they moving, or are they being moved? (As might corpses swaying to the rolling motion of a train, for instance.) The camera pans back slightly. We see they are lovers. But the woman's eyes are distant. She gazes over his shoulder. Eventually, she closes them.

The long opening sequence has already put the viewer in a contemplative mood, in spite of its carnality. Lulu, the main protagonist, subsequently draws us into her self-observation. We travel down her psychological corridors to experience pain, then resolutions. Exquisitely composed monochrome. Brutal police. TV footage of Iraq. The woman silhouetted with her cat against the window.

Using psychological symbols presents a filmmaker with a dilemma. Dismantle conventional linear narrative too much and the viewer can become perplexed or alienated: do it too subtly and they may miss the point. Bunuel's ants escaping from a hole in the hand (Un chien andalou) can seem offputting or obscure. But a similar suggestion (that decay is just beneath the surface) in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, can easily be missed because audiences focus too much on the story. Directors like David Lynch (Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway) have helped wean audiences towards surrealism and the opportunities offered by cinema to explore subconscious worlds. Cinema-lovers tire of formulaic films and find more interest in the challenges presented by works like Phantom Love.

But Menkes has two strong advantages. Firstly, her poetry is beautiful to watch. Any distressing representations - those of ordinary life - the endless stresses and struggles of relationships, difficult family ties, even the noise of the TV - are gradually transformed and overpowered by the hypnotic, dreamlike images of her inner consciousness. Secondly, the process, unlike the negative message of surrealists such as Bunuel, is transformative. Like Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, Lulu is finding a goodness inside ugliness, rather than expending vast effort to prove the emptiness of the bourgeoisie, society or the Church.

Phantom Love is a voyage. A woman's journey into the depths of her being. What was it Jung said about other people: Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves. And the 'others' in Lulu's life are just that. Her sister is medicated to the point where we wonder why she isn't already institutionalised. Mother is intrusive. Probably gets it from her dad. Even Lulu's lover, although a bit of a stud, is a sh*t.

Lulu works in a casino. But pressures are becoming too much to bear. She files her nails obsessively - the same nails, so impersonal at the roulette table, that rest gently and kindly on the sweat-beaded shoulder of her vigorous lover. As she examines elements that screw up her life, Lulu makes the inner journey to resolve them.

I asked Menkes where the idea for her film had originated. She told me of months working with a shaman in Israel. Using lucid dreaming and trance. She had to experience the cleansing of her own psychological demons - an exhausting business by her own account - before she could express the process in her art. "I was quite ill, physically, for much of the seven months," she says. But the result is an intimacy with the process and images that seem to have a subconscious impact.

She says: "People who are willing to watch the film and endure the pain, and the duration of the pain, and the darkness, will themselves experience a sort of mini version of my process: the film will 'vibrate' with the areas in the viewer that are blocked and painful and the viewer can then work with that in himself, or not." I don't know what Menkes went through with her shamen, but the process is believable, both for Lulu and for us. Modern neuro-linguistics stresses that, 'the map is not the territory' - in other words, if you don't like what you perceive, start by changing your perception of it. The ancient Egyptian and Tibetan 'books of the dead' talk of similar processes to transform monsters into benefactors - much like Beauty and a Beast.

Menkes urges us to stick with it and claims, "those who do will have an experience that is meaningful and lasting." Strangely, among the welter of films I am watch in the course of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, it is the images from Phantom Love that continually haunt me. Why? Even if you just take stills from this movie, there are fantasy scenes that could earn a place in any art gallery. Levitation and explosion into light. A snake in a repeating corridor. A bridge she always tries to cross.

Menkes' stuff is hard work. And demands to be taken seriously. But somehow it does feel like time very well spent. Phantom Love is the sort of work that keeps cinema alive. Uncompromisingly. As art - and not just as the digestion aid for popcorn. Is it possible to identify with Lulu who eventually achieves the stillness inside she yearns for? Evocative, challenging and very rewarding, Phantom Love gripped me with such intensity I probably would have jumped if a pin had fallen.

The title recalls a line from Resnais' classic, Last Year in Marienbad. The woman 'A' says, "You're like some phantom waiting for me to come." In Resnais' work, whether the protagonists find fulfilment is a decision of interpretation by the viewer, or perhaps the male protagonist. For Menkes' Lulu, it depends on herself.

This is the type of film I am predisposed to love. I have watched it twice (trying, I was trying...and I don't know why) and outside of the Tarkovsky homage I hate it. It is an enigma wrapped in pretension and convolution parading as cool wit and genius. The problem with the ethereal, ephemeral or whatever style of film one might be inclined to call these pictures is they can go wrong in a hurry.. It is not easy being Tarkovsky, Weerasethakul or Lynch...it isn't. Case in point. Granted there are a few moments to appreciate in this art-house tire-fire but those moments are few and far between and always fleeting. Maybe if Nina Mekas could have shaved about 70 minutes off of the 87 minute running time she may have had something. Unfortunately, all 87 minutes are present and counted for, but all the viewer will be left with is anger.

an incredible movie that is a combination of surreal and documentary, with stunning performances and brilliant cinematography but most of all, heart wrenching and deep. marina shoif is perfect as the estranged LULU, and her sister, played by Juliette Marquis, seems to represent her wounded interior self. this film is hard to describe as it works on a subconscious level. the powerful images stick with you, and gain power as you dwell on them, days later. Besides the visuals, the sound track is amazing and on a certain level watching this film is like going into a trance, an underworld journey, you surface when its over and feel re-arranged.i think its a perfect movie.

As a fan of Ms. Menkes' films, I didn't quite know what to expect from her new feature film, Phantom Love. I have been a fan since seeing her six previous works--Soft Warrior, Great Sadness of Zohara, Magdalena Viraga, Queen of Diamonds, Bloody Child, and Massakre. What I love about Nina's work is that it is utterly brave, bold, and original! Nina dares to tap into something spiritual, mystic, subconscious...something undefinable, something magical... Her new film, Phantom Love, a stunning feature shot in black and white 35MM, seems even more daring and unique. From the opening frame, Nina steadies her shots with a hand-held, "raw" edge. She abandons some of her more formal static shots in favor of a roaming eye...an eye that seems to dig down into her subject, dig a hole...pierce and burrow into the depths of the alienation and repression of her female characters. Her central character, a blackjack dealer living in Los Angeles, is somewhat reminiscent of Firdaus from Queen of Diamonds; but unlike Firdaus, this protagonist struggles with "family problems" such as an overbearing mother and psychotic sister. At one point, the "sister" disappears and seems to fuse into the psychic space of the protagonist/blackjack dealer. Typical of Nina's work, specific elements can be debated...and often the literal is less important than the subconscious space or the internal sensations awakened from a particular sequence... In the end, it seems a weight had been lifted as butterflies encircled the main character and she stood naked in the window of her medieval-style apartment. Perhaps this is a sign of hope...perhaps Nina will simple leave it up to the viewer to decide... No matter, I have rarely been so moved from viewing a film... Way to go girl!!!