QUEEN OF DIAMONDS

Newly restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation, this visually stunning masterpiece by L.A. indie filmmaker and teacher Nina Menkes focuses on an alienated young woman (Tinka Menkes) whose husband has gone missing. Though she works as a blackjack dealer at a glitzy Las Vegas casino and lives at a nondescript desert motel where her violent neighbors fight, she is mostly a laconic, passive figure in a series of stunning, sometimes surreal landscapes captured immaculately in 35mm and color—and in rigorous compositions that echo Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman. Cleveland revival premiere. DCP. 77 min.