Press: Phantom Love

Phantom Love Pull Quotes

Stanley Kubrick's confident statement ‘if it can be written or thought, it can be filmed’ receives stunning confirmation in PHANTOM LOVE…not since Bela Tarr's WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES has black-and-white looked so stunning and mesmerizing…radical and beautiful, pure cinema!”

— Robert Koehler, Variety

PHANTOM LOVE, by Nina Menkes, one of Los Angeles's leading independent film artists, makes it’s new york premiere at MOMA…her richly nuanced films are distinguished by luminous, surreal, and often disturbing imagery, and accompanied by soundtracks that are carefully modulated to suggest the simultaneity of the psychological and outside worlds.”

— Laurence Kardish, Curator, Department of Film, Museum of Modern Art, NYC

Potent and luminous! A seductively powerful vision...Menkes is one of the most provocative artists in film today!"

— Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

Evocative, challenging and very rewarding, PHANTOM LOVE gripped me with such intensity I probably would have jumped if a pin had fallen. Among the welter of films I am watching in the course of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, it is the images from PHANTOM LOVE that continually haunt me. PHANTOM LOVE is the sort of work that keeps cinema alive.”

— Chris Docker, Eye for Film

With PHANTOM LOVE, Nina Menkes adds another masterwork to her extraordinary oeuvre. Its story of a woman's trauma and healing is told with a virtuosic use of fundamental film techniques: black and white 35mm photography, exquisite framing, and resonant sound design. It is a triumph of visual intelligence and aesthetic integrity."

— David E. James, Author: The Most Typical Avant-Garde,
A History of Minor Cinema in Los Angeles

Outstanding black and white cinematography, compelling narrative structure and extraordinary use of sounds creates a surreal atmosphere offering access to deeper levels of reality.”

— Jury Statement – Best Artistic Achievement Award,
Bangkok World Film Festival