To no one’s surprise, since this has been coming for a long time since the first reactions began to arrive from the festival circuit, ‘Blonde’, Andrew Dominik’s magnificent new film, has already is bringing more queue for extra-cinematic reasons than for its tremendous value in artistic and narrative terms. Because, what kind of world would we live in if there wasn’t a weekly – if not daily – controversy with which to show your moral authority online?
Author’s authority
On this occasion, the false biopic about Marilyn Monroe based on the homonymous novel by Joyce Carol Oates, is being harsh criticism from certain sectors and individuals —some of them, as I was able to verify yesterday, have admitted to having seen only “one hour” of the almost three that it lasts— who assimilate fiction literally and who have branded the feature film as misogynist, anti-abortionist and being little less than suffering porn.
But I will not be the one to point out the absurdity of all this, since it is much better that its own director does it, who, in an interview with The Wrap, has delved into the discursive mechanisms of the film. Thus, Dominik begins by calling his ‘Blonde’ a “salvation fantasy”and throws a poisoned dart —with humor, yes— at the moral detractors of the film.
“I think the movie cares a little bit more about the meaning of Marilyn Monroe a little bit more than the documented reality, but I think the movie is really about, that everything that has to do with Marilyn Monroe, is a kind of fantasy of salvation. Everything is written with the feeling of ‘I understand her, only I do. If I had been there, this wouldn’t have happened.’ You see it in Norman Mailer’s book, you see it in Gloria Steinem’s book and you see it in the movie ‘Blonde’. And I think you also see it in the naysayers of the movie, because they’re also trying to rescue her. They’re trying to save her from me. But I think when you have the desire to rescue someone, the person you most need to be rescued are you [ríe]”.
Of course, Dominik has not ignored the elephant in the room, entering directly into the abortion controversy derived from the scenes in which Monroe’s fetus speaks to the protagonist asking her why she decided to end her existence. The filmmaker is clear polarization and the current social climate are to blame for what remains a sterile controversy.
“What the movie is saying is that she’s not seeing reality. She’s seeing her own fears and desires projected onto the world around her. You see constantly, over and over again, that she’s reacting to a story that she carries within her. And I think this kind of wanting to see ‘Blonde’ through the filter of Roe vs. Wade is because everyone else is doing it. They have an agenda where they feel women’s freedoms are being compromised, and when they see ‘Blonde’, they see the devil, but that’s not what it’s about. I think it’s very difficult for people to get away from the stories that they carry inside and see things of their own free will. And I think that’s what it’s really about. movie. How dangerous that is. But, you know, it’s hard for people to keep two things in mind at the same time. It’s black and white.”
In addition, the head of ‘Blonde’ is clear that if his film had been released ten or fifteen years ago, none of this would have happened.
“I think the film is quite nuanced and complex, but people are obviously concerned about the loss of freedoms. But no one would have given a shit if I had made the film in 2008, and probably no one in four years. And the movie won’t have changed. It’s just the kind of thing that’s going on. I don’t think the movie is anti-pro choice. [o pro-vida]. I don’t think it is at all. And I’m not convinced that she really wanted a baby. I think she has feelings about not having a baby.”
As if all this explanation were not enough, Andrew Dominik also developed in a little more depth the pregnancy factor in ‘Blonde’ and its implications for the story and its protagonistmaking clear the care put into the study and creation of his particular Norma Jane.
“I think pregnancy is the most stressful event. If you’re an unwanted child, like she was, then I think pregnancy is extremely ambivalent. On the one hand, she can rescue herself from the drawer by having a child, so her big wish It’s undoing the damage that was done to her. But on the other hand, her pregnancy experience is her own mother. And the fact that her mother had Norma means that she was abandoned and she went crazy. It destroyed her life. So I feel like Norma is in this horrible situation where she’s doomed whether she does or not. There’s a desire to have a baby, but there’s also fear, and I think that’s the main stressor for her.”
If you want to check for yourselves what Dominik has stated, you can see ‘Blonde’ on Netflix since last September 28 and enjoy an audiovisual and interpretive exercise among the best of the year.