Nina (2018): A Sanctuary of Desire Returning to the Primal Self Beyond Sterile Relationships

In life, we face countless voids. Sometimes, we borrow from the lives of others to fill those voids, or we force ourselves into the framework of ‘normalcy’ defined by society. However, the true self often peeks out unexpectedly through cracks, at the point of contact with a complete stranger.

This article provides an in-depth exploration of how a woman, lost on the border between loss and desire, faces her essence, and the destructive yet beautiful liberation she experiences in the process.

🌿 Moments When This Film Permeates Deeply

• When the comfort of life feels like a suffocating shackle and you wish to escape somewhere.
• When you want to confront the honest ‘desire’ within, stepping away from obligations packaged as love.
• When you wish to witness the process of tension between women expanding beyond mere romance into the expansion of the self.
• The reason you should read to the end: This review analyzes the structural meaning of the controversial ending, proving the value of dignified isolation that follows destruction.

🎞 Note Before Viewing

This work features a relatively high level of physical contact and emotional exchange, providing an aesthetic and realistic portrayal of power shifts and identity confusion between characters. We recommend acknowledging the weight of this psychological drama that delves into the essence of relationships.

🎬 Film Information

• Title: Nina (2018)
• Director: Olga Chajdas
• Screenplay: Olga Chajdas
• Co-writers: Julia Kijowska, Marta Konarzewska
• Country: 🇵🇱 Poland
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• Running Time: 94 minutes
• Platform: MUBI and other major independent film channels
• Cast: Julia Kijowska (as Nina), Eliza Rycembel (as Magda), Andrzej Konopka (as Wojtek)

📖 Nina and Magda: Trajectories of Divergent Desire in a Space of Lack [No Spoilers]

Nina, a French teacher in her mid-30s, appears to live a stable middle-class life but is being consumed by a massive void: infertility. Her relationship with her husband, Wojtek, has long since devolved into a mechanical attempt to conceive a child. While searching for a surrogate as a last hope, they coincidentally encounter Magda, a free-spirited soul, through a car accident.

Captivated by Magda’s youth and vitality, the couple approaches her with the intention of making her a surrogate candidate. However, Magda’s appearance instead ignites the embers of identity that had been suppressed within Nina. The plan to find a surrogate gradually transforms into a journey of tracing Nina’s own desires, and the taut tension between the three begins to stir into a massive wave that shakes their daily lives.

🔴 [Nina] Birth Place: Interpretation and Liberation of Suppressed Desire Symbolized by the Red Womb

The most symbolic space in the film is Natalia Bażowska’s art installation, ‘Birth Place.’ This red, pulsating, womb-shaped space where Nina takes Magda serves as a metaphor penetrating the entire theme of the film. Initially, Nina sought to possess another’s (Magda’s) womb to resolve her own physical infertility; paradoxically, what she discovered in that red room was not a child, but ‘herself.’

The interpretation of this scene shows that Nina’s desire has shifted from the social duty of ‘motherhood’ to the primal identity of being a ‘woman.’ The moment she presses close to Magda under the red lighting, Nina finally refuses to be a mirror reflecting the expectations of others and begins to feel her own pulse. This is not a mere affair or deviance, but a ritual that breathes life into a world that had remained only a hollow shell.

🎞️ Psychological Structure: The Attempt to Borrow a Womb Shifting into Nina’s Own Identity Awakening

The relationship structure between Nina and Magda is based on the subversion of power. Initially, Nina, who holds economic superiority, attempts to use Magda instrumentally, but as the relationship deepens, the emotional initiative shifts to Magda. Nina hears the voice of her inner self—which she had denied all her life—while observing Magda’s unrestrained identity as a lesbian.

The interesting point here is the way Nina defines her identity. Rather than labeling herself ‘bisexual,’ she declares, “I am Magda-sexual,” affirming a powerful attraction stemming from the person themselves rather than a specific label. From the perspective of this review, Magda is not just a lover to Nina, but a guide helping her reclaim the wildness she had lost.

🔎 Reinterpretation of the Ending — The Aesthetics of Dignified Isolation Completed Through the Destruction of Relationships

The film’s ending completely destroys the grammar of a traditional happy ending. The event of Magda’s pregnancy comes to Nina not as salvation, but as a massive shock and sense of betrayal. The fact that Magda conceived a child through a relationship with Nina’s husband, Wojtek, means that the shackles of the ‘biological family’—which Nina tried so hard to escape—have been reproduced in the most bizarre fashion.

However, Nina does not become submerged in this tragic situation. She pushes Magda away and chooses her own path. This is a decision to keep faith with the ‘self’ discovered through Magda, rather than love for Magda as an object. The expression Nina shows at the end contains a solid human dignity—the ability to finally stand alone—rather than the sadness of loss.

Nina’s solitude is not the result of being rejected by others, but a sacred sanctuary she chose herself to preserve her own purity.

🧐 Questions on the Provocative Ending of [Nina] and the Interpretation of Character Relationships

Q1. How should we understand the process of Magda having a relationship with Wojtek and even becoming pregnant at the end?

This point causes discomfort and confusion for many viewers. When faced with the crisis of her relationship with Nina being severed, Magda feels extreme anxiety and, in a self-abandoning state induced by alcohol, accepts Wojtek’s violent approach. This is a tragedy born from Magda’s unstable identity and her twisted obsession with Nina. Through this, the film starkly shows how destructive human desire can be and how the obsession with creating a ‘family’ can result in a monstrous situation.

Q2. Doesn’t Nina’s act of rejecting the pregnant Magda at the end feel too cold-hearted?

On the surface, it may seem heartless, but this was an essential process for Nina’s character growth. All her life, Nina lived responding to the demands of others (fertility treatments, her husband’s expectations). Magda’s pregnancy attempts to trap Nina once again in the role of a ‘mother raising a child’ or a ‘helper in a complex relationship.’ Nina casting Magda out is a declaration that she will permanently escape all those role-plays, a powerful expression of her will to exist solely as herself.

✨ [Nina] A Chilly Freedom Blooming Atop the Grave of Desire

Using the physical defect of infertility as a medium, this work asks whether we are all, in fact, living in a state of spiritual infertility. Relationships always end unfinished, and the things we believed were love sometimes transform into the most hideous forms. Yet, amidst the debris, the one thing that remains unchanged is the thrill of the moment one realizes who they are.

Nina did not get a child, she lost her husband, and she parted from her lover. However, she finally gained one whole person named ‘Nina.’ True independence begins not with union with a loved one, but with the courage to isolate oneself from relationships that destroy the self.

🎙️ To You, Lost in the Forest of Relationships

When the belief that a relationship with another will complete you collapses, you finally begin to hear your own voice.

Do you wish to fill your void by possessing someone, or do you wish to face your true face reflected through that person as if in a mirror?

📽️ Violet Screen Recommendations: Women’s Narratives of a Different Texture

• Elisa & Marcela (2019): Set in 1901 Spain, this film covers the true story of a woman who disguised herself as a man to hold a wedding ceremony to break social taboos.
• MANOK (2025): A South Korean film that premiered at the 2025 BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival. Set in Seoul, it deals with the solidarity and differences in values that arise when women from different generations meet.