VENICE 2021: Mona Lisa and The Blood Moon
VENICEAna Lily Amirpour is one of very few filmmakers working nowadays that is a true cult auteur. Her crowdfunded feature debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, was a unique blend of art house romantic horror with a western aesthetic (an Iranian-language and -set film shot entirely in California), and her Special Jury Prize winner at the 2016 Venice Film Festival, The Bad Batch, was a highly divisive post-apocalyptic tale of cannibalism and desert people with a psychedelic soundtrack.
Now she is back with what is bound to become another film that only select few will connect with: Mona Lisa and The Blood Moon. All three films of Amirpour have dealt with outcasts unable to fit in and belong into societies, and this theme is clearly apparent here; the titular Mona Lisa (Jeon Jong-seo) is a Korean girl with mind-control powers who manages to escape a New Orleans institute, hunted by the police (Craig Robinson). On her way, she befriends a young punk (Ed Skrein) and a pole dancer and her son (Kate Hudson and Evan Whitten).
This obsession with fitting in and feeling like an outsider in the world makes perfect sense for Amirpour: both her parents are Iranian, yet she was born in England and lived most of her life in the USA. This way, she belongs to neither one group or another in a full way, leading to frustration that she uses to craft spectacular films. Mona Lisa and The Blood Moon is a fully cathartic experience, as the young protagonist manages to use her powers to control the ones who cross her path, helping those she cares for, and outsmarting everyone in the process. Not only this, but the atmosphere itself is intoxicating thanks to the loud and bombastic original and licenced songs, giving the film a level of energy that turns almost every sequence into a beautiful music video.
The cast assembled here is clearly on the same page as Amirpour, with everyone delivering performances that are fun but also emotionally resonant. Jeon Jong-seo was already a standout in 2018’s Burning, and here she manages to deliver a powerful performance with minimal dialogue or expressions. Hudson is playful and seductive in her role, while the always-reliable Craig Robinson gives some of the biggest laughs of the film.
It is likely a very personal thing, but watching films as playful and fun as Mona Lisa and The Blood Moon during a festival that features a seemingly endless barrage of self-serious dramas is always welcome. For those that feel like they do not fit in a world full of injustice and prejudice, it is an empowering fantasy that is clever, engrossing, and endlessly captivating. Its small imperfections in the peculiar camerawork or soundtrack only make it more endearing, essentially turning it into the ugly duckling of the festival, waiting to be seen for the beautiful swan that it really is.