Blonde is a relentlessly dark, disturbing movie presenting a portrait of Marilyn Monroe as deeply traumatized, and brutally exploited for her sex. It's a very remarkable movie, in the way it innovatively uses film technique to evoke a kind of schizophrenia - the plot is very jarring from scene to scene, shifting suddenly between realism and surrealism; it jumps frequently between black & white and colour, 4:3 and 'scope ratios, and tight camera compositions make you feel claustrophobic throughout. All of this has the effect of putting you into the psychotic mind-space of the main character.
As a work of art, as something that challenges you to rethink your preconceptions, that forces you to see the pop-culture icon - or even more broadly the "dumb blonde" archetype - in a new and different light, I think it will be very interesting viewing for a lot of people. It's a very feminist film but I can't speak to the level of revisionism versus reality in the overall portrayal of her life. It is so disjointedly nightmarish and bleakly humourless as to be overwhelming, and I think most people will reject it as such, but I'm inclined to think that it IS a more honest depiction of Marilyn's celebrity in the final evaluation, and perhaps the most boundary-pushing film about the brutality of Hollywood since Sunset Boulevard.
I'm not sure I'd want to watch it more than once, though, Ana de Armas' performance is fantastic, and the inspired direction includes at least one moment of light in the most artistic sex scene I've ever seen. The "Assassination of Jesse James" director Andrew Dominik has a unique cinematic voice and vision and I'm glad he's back after an extended (decade-long) hiatus from making feature films - with what will probably go down as the most controversial movie of 2022.
As a work of art, as something that challenges you to rethink your preconceptions, that forces you to see the pop-culture icon - or even more broadly the "dumb blonde" archetype - in a new and different light, I think it will be very interesting viewing for a lot of people. It's a very feminist film but I can't speak to the level of revisionism versus reality in the overall portrayal of her life. It is so disjointedly nightmarish and bleakly humourless as to be overwhelming, and I think most people will reject it as such, but I'm inclined to think that it IS a more honest depiction of Marilyn's celebrity in the final evaluation, and perhaps the most boundary-pushing film about the brutality of Hollywood since Sunset Boulevard.
I'm not sure I'd want to watch it more than once, though, Ana de Armas' performance is fantastic, and the inspired direction includes at least one moment of light in the most artistic sex scene I've ever seen. The "Assassination of Jesse James" director Andrew Dominik has a unique cinematic voice and vision and I'm glad he's back after an extended (decade-long) hiatus from making feature films - with what will probably go down as the most controversial movie of 2022.