[...] While there remained the option of being a spectator, then, Zhora's death is aestheticized in the dual sense of being exploited for its spectacular qualities and being the object of disinterested pleasure: Zhora appears to us as an expendable incident, a marginal action in the wings of the main field, consumed solely in her death. But for this very reason, we fail the VK-empathy test the film presents us with through her graphic, sacrificial consummation. [...]