The concept is insane. A viciously fictitious tale about a human being who I imagine to have an already interesting life. As a lover of fiction it’s difficult to admonish an attempt at it wherever and however it may take place, but in a case like this, it seems strange if not distasteful.
Historical fiction is a genre that has been around since the Iliad and filmmakers have utilized it for numerous purposes. Celebrity biopics have been as common as the summer blockbuster for the past few years and it is a given that these movies will take liberties here and there to make for more dramatic picture or smooth plots around the point. Most of the time these edits are to make for a blander, more palatable story that general audiences can have their popcorn to without the need for regurgitation.
Blonde opted to go in a different direction.
I imagine many might hold the criticism all style no substance, but that would be completely unfair. This movie has more style than most mainstream movies that come out per year put together. Whilst putting a dead woman’s fake reputation through hell.
I guess it’s a life that some weirdo wanted Marilyn Monroe to have? Or assumed she probably did have. Either way, I don’t totally agree with the concept, but it’s not for the critic to agree or disagree with a conception, but to grade the execution. In the case of Blonde, I believe the delivery was nothing short of impeccable.
From the lighting, the editing, the transitions, the recreation of famous scenes and photographs, the story this movie did not relent. And the acting. While sure, you can hear Ms. de Armas’s Cuban heritage slip (and at times flow) through the cracks, but it is permissible to me at least because this movie is a fantasy.
Blonde is much more enjoyable if you don’t think about it as a fan fiction of Marilyn Monroe’s life. It’s instead better thought of as a story about a Marilyn Monroe type. Ana de Armas’s spanish accent doesn’t matter and neither does the seemingly senseless degradation of a deceased woman’s name if it’s not about Monroe.
There is a reason books are made into films. Not to make them worse, but to add an indelible visual companion to the words set by the author. While I haven’t read the Pulitzer Prize winning book from whence this came, I think the addition of the visual medium works in this story’s favor.
So much of Marilyn Monroe’s life has turned into American iconography and seeing the character placed through the malicious situations she needs to endure make the central theme that much stronger. Seeing the fictional curtain pulled back on a pillar of our culture makes the harrowing ideas in this story sink in even further.
So what is the overarching theme? My strongest explanation for this film’s existence is to say that this is an exploitation movie that exploits an innocent person to make a point about exploitation. Marilyn Monroe is dead, there is nothing she can say about the existence of this book or movie or object to it in any sense. But it’s. Because of this that the exploitation cuts even deeper. From start to finish the movie is ripe with people trying to take advantage of our lead, whether it is her innocence, her sexuality, her stardom, and to my knowledge a movie has never taken this angle before. To paraphrase The Mad Titan, director Andrew Dominik “used the exploitation to destroy the exploitation”.
So why first and long? My vigor for this film is not to say that it doesn’t come with faults. The are other motifs that the director hits us over the head with, namely the constant “Daddy-ing” and aspects of the fetal scenes felt like they were borrowed from a Sunday School educational film.
This movie does not do itself any favors early on to win viewers over. It offers certain elements that might make you cringe if they were in other, lesser films. Blonde gets away with these gestures on phenomenal cinematography, forthright acting, and an endgame.
I really encourage viewers to watch this movie as a dream. Maybe Marilyn’s dream, the authors dream she had in Marilyn’s head, or, Caroline Conrow’s, or even just person’s life story. The artists behind this story have ideas they would like to convey and you can either agree with them or not. I would just like to say I think the packaging this film was delivered to us in was one I would take the time to appreciate as I was opening.
