What to expect
Jean Renoir’s Zola adaptation combines theatrical performance with crowded social observation. Catherine Hessling’s deliberately stylised Nana divides viewers, making performance itself part of the film’s argument about projection and desire.
How to ease in
The film is long and emotionally abrasive. Watch how rooms fill with observers and claimants around Nana, and separate the character’s choices from the social fantasies placed upon her.
Heads-up
A performer’s social ascent and destructive relationships expose the appetites and hypocrisy of the men who try to possess her.
Nana is watched so intensely that every gesture becomes evidence for someone else’s story about her. I am interested in the discomfort of a performance that refuses to become quietly available to that gaze.
Open the note ↓
Nana is watched so intensely that every gesture becomes evidence for someone else’s story about her. I am interested in the discomfort of a performance that refuses to become quietly available to that gaze.
— Momo
Credits & versions
Version map
Where to go next
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