Review: One of the unheralded gems of 1970s revenge cinema GINA is very much a different kind of animal – a film that straddles the line between a serious dramatic creation and the kick-ass world of exploitation cinema. Acclaimed director Denys Arcand – who would later win numerous awards for films like JESUS OF MONTREAL and THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS – fashioned this story of a documentary film crew that doing a story on labor practices in the textile industry. At the same time they’ve arrived to a frozen Quebec town to shoot their story the new stripper – Gina (played by the phenomenally gorgeous Celine Lomez, who enlivened several Cinepix sex comedies and made a dynamic splash in THE SILENT PARTNER) has also arrived, a last-minute substitute for another dancer. Gina becomes friendly with the film crew, even helping them with their work. At the same time she’s on the radar of the rough gang of unemployed workers who race around town on snowmobiles and use an abandoned ship as their clubhouse. Sexual tensions boil over and Gina is savagely raped; one phone call to Montreal brings muscle town and Gina shows with brutal effectiveness she is not a woman to be messed with. Director Arcand does a wonderful job of sustaining the dual focus on both the film crew’s efforts and Gina’s experiences in town. Characters are sharply etched with minimal effort, and when the action comes it leaves you wishing that Arcand had done more in the genre. For fans of Celine Lomez this is THE essential film to see – she ably conveys a young woman with a cold understanding of the world, a person used to an element of control that lashes back when that is taken from her. Among the costars in the film are Gabriel Arcand (the director’s brother – cast as the leader of the film crew), Claude Blanchand, Andre Gagnon, Paulle Ballargeron, Serge Thierault, Frederique Collin, Roger Lebel, and Dorothee Berryman.
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