Blonde
[spoilers follow]
When I came to watch Blonde, I had several preconceptions. First, it's directed by the guy who made the Assassination of Jesse James, which I really like, plus I'm a big fan of Ana de Armas, and I've seen a couple of rave reviews from friends. But it also hasn't been a critical favourite. So would I like it?
The short answer is no. I didn't like it at all. And it's weird; it's not boring, the acting is good, verging on stellar (Adrien Brody, de Armas, the dude who plays Whitey), it's arty and it looks lovely. So what is wrong?
First, Marilyn does not have a character. She's just a victim personified. She's brutalised throughout and is never the agent of anything that happens. She just gets fucked, quite literally sometimes, without any real ability to do anything about it. This isn't what Marilyn's life was like. So okay this is fiction but while that does mean this doesn't have to be true to life, it also means the director gets to choose how he portrays her. And she's portrayed as entirely unlikeable, a doll with daddy issues, and it was really hard to care what happpened to her.
Second, nothing is connected. It's so bitty that you can't follow any plot line through. In fact, there was no plot as such. There isn't any thematic coherence either. It was like a series of vignettes. But you'd never see how they progressed. So it was deeply unsatisfactory in that way too.
Third, the fetus stuff was deeply unpleasant. And it relied on antichoice memes, which is one big reason I think that critics didn't like it. Rightly so. It was vile. And the shot up Marilyn's vag was entirely gratuitous and pointless.
I wouldn't recommend it and you're missing nothing if you give it a swerve. It wasn't even very controversial. Just dull and fractured.
posted by Dr Zen @ 2:03 pm
1 Comments:
I didn’t like it and gave up about a third through. It was simply too unpleasant to watch without any benefits. Just tears upon tears. No agency, as you say. Bleh…
Paula (they won’t accept my phone login on blogger)
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