The Cinematheque

New Restoration

“The most underrated of Arcand’s films.”

John Harkness, Now Magazine

By turns a grindhouse rape-revenge picture and a leftist labour-abuse drama, Denys Arcand’s Gina is a strange but potent brew. On the one hand, there’s the eponymous heroine (Céline Lomez), a headstrong Montreal stripper hired to dance at a hotel cabaret in Louiseville, a textile-factory town. On the other, there’s the run-and-gun crew of NFB filmmakers chasing a story about oppressive working conditions at the mill. (The reference to Arcand’s own unfavourable experience with a nearly identical Film Board production is impossibly obvious.) The outsiders’ convergence at the snow-submerged tavern attracts the attention of a pack of maniacal snowmobilers, whose unspeakable actions (set to ​“God Save the Queen”) are answered with extreme prejudice. Drawing ironic association between forms of worker exploitation—and wielding the gory tropes of exploitation cinema accordingly—Arcand concludes his ​’70s crime saga with one doozy of a denouement.

In French with English subtitles

Advisory: Gina includes a scene of sexual violence.

“An even more ferocious observation of social decay than in Réjeanne Padovani.”

Jacques Siclier, Le Monde

“A one-of-a-kind powerhouse that builds to a gruesome climax and the greatest snowmobile chase in movie history.”

Canadian Independent Pictures