MONA LISA AND THE BLOOD MOON
****
Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Screenplay: Ana Lily Amirpour
Principal cast:
Jun Jong-Seo
Kate Hudson
Craig Robinson
Ed Skrein
Evan Whitten
Lauren Bowles
Country: USA
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 106 mins.
Australian release date: 13 October 2022.
Iranian/English/American filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour’s is best known for her debut feature, 2014’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, a stylish, oddball vampire thriller that bears some similarity to her latest movie, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon. In fact, all three of her feature-length films are pretty out there, something for which she can take full credit given that she not only directs but writes all her own screenplays (her 2016 cannibal love-story, The Bad Batch, didn’t get a theatrical release in Australia - despite winning the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival - but it can be found on Netflix). Her work makes me think of what would happen if Jim Jarmusch collaborated with Quentin Tarantino, which probably shouldn’t be surprising for someone who claims that she learnt “how to be an American” by watching Jerry Kramer’s video The Making of [Michael Jackson’s] ‘Thriller’ “thousands of times;” Amirpour was born in England to parents who fled Iran after the revolution and moved to the States while still a girl.
In a fairly classic horror movie opening, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon begins in a high-security institution for the mentally ill on the outskirts of New Orleans. ‘Tis the night of the blood moon and something is stirring inside Mona ‘Lisa’ Lee (Jun Jong-Seo, last seen on our screens in Lee Chang-dong’s excellent Burning), a straight-jacketed inmate who looks like the star of Hideo Nakata’s The Ring. When a cruel nurse comes to cut her toenails, Mona Lisa uses a previously undiscovered power to make her bloody escape, swiping a bag of Cheez Puffs along the way, and heads for the French Quarter in the nearby city. There, she meets a number of denizens of the night, including a street-dealer known as Fuzz (Ed Skrein) and a single mum, Bonnie (Kate Hudson), a stripper at a sleazy nightclub, neither of whom are quite how they seem. Meanwhile, an unfortunate cop on the beat, Officer Harold (Craig Robinson), has taken the call about Mona Lisa’s escape and is on her trail but he’s soon to realise he should have paid more attention to the fortune cookie message he read just before answering the radio-call.
As with her previous films, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon deals with outsiders who have a hard time fitting into mainstream society. Amirpour says that, “Growing up in America I was always aware that I was an outsider… In my movies, the biggest antagonist is the system, and how it forces certain behaviour onto us, and ultimately affects how we see each other and where we find belonging. With Mona Lisa, I wanted to create a new type of hero who faces the problems of a modern and chaotic reality.” In keeping with that idea (and the director’s own history), the protagonist is a North Korean refugee who arrived in the USA when she was 10 and was constantly rejected, but that’s about all we know of her. She’s a young woman of few words, an enigma to all, even perhaps to herself. The sudden appearance of her supernatural powers is equally enigmatic and unexplained, which is one of the film’s strengths. Hudson’s Bonnie is the reverse, a motor-mouth who rarely shuts up and who constantly tells anyone in earshot what she’s thinking and feeling. She is happy in her skin but readily prepared to take advantage of the golden opportunity she sees in Mona Lisa and Hudson plays her with relish. She’s terrific.
Another common trait to Amirpour’s oeuvre is a killer soundtrack and the collection of music heard here is outstanding. It’s as interesting and intriguing and as unclassifiable as the rest of Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon. If you’re in the mood for an original cinematic and aural experience, this film’s for you. Like Officer Harold’s fortune cookie said, “Forget what you know.”
Screenplay: Ana Lily Amirpour
Principal cast:
Jun Jong-Seo
Kate Hudson
Craig Robinson
Ed Skrein
Evan Whitten
Lauren Bowles
Country: USA
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 106 mins.
Australian release date: 13 October 2022.
Iranian/English/American filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour’s is best known for her debut feature, 2014’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, a stylish, oddball vampire thriller that bears some similarity to her latest movie, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon. In fact, all three of her feature-length films are pretty out there, something for which she can take full credit given that she not only directs but writes all her own screenplays (her 2016 cannibal love-story, The Bad Batch, didn’t get a theatrical release in Australia - despite winning the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival - but it can be found on Netflix). Her work makes me think of what would happen if Jim Jarmusch collaborated with Quentin Tarantino, which probably shouldn’t be surprising for someone who claims that she learnt “how to be an American” by watching Jerry Kramer’s video The Making of [Michael Jackson’s] ‘Thriller’ “thousands of times;” Amirpour was born in England to parents who fled Iran after the revolution and moved to the States while still a girl.
In a fairly classic horror movie opening, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon begins in a high-security institution for the mentally ill on the outskirts of New Orleans. ‘Tis the night of the blood moon and something is stirring inside Mona ‘Lisa’ Lee (Jun Jong-Seo, last seen on our screens in Lee Chang-dong’s excellent Burning), a straight-jacketed inmate who looks like the star of Hideo Nakata’s The Ring. When a cruel nurse comes to cut her toenails, Mona Lisa uses a previously undiscovered power to make her bloody escape, swiping a bag of Cheez Puffs along the way, and heads for the French Quarter in the nearby city. There, she meets a number of denizens of the night, including a street-dealer known as Fuzz (Ed Skrein) and a single mum, Bonnie (Kate Hudson), a stripper at a sleazy nightclub, neither of whom are quite how they seem. Meanwhile, an unfortunate cop on the beat, Officer Harold (Craig Robinson), has taken the call about Mona Lisa’s escape and is on her trail but he’s soon to realise he should have paid more attention to the fortune cookie message he read just before answering the radio-call.
As with her previous films, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon deals with outsiders who have a hard time fitting into mainstream society. Amirpour says that, “Growing up in America I was always aware that I was an outsider… In my movies, the biggest antagonist is the system, and how it forces certain behaviour onto us, and ultimately affects how we see each other and where we find belonging. With Mona Lisa, I wanted to create a new type of hero who faces the problems of a modern and chaotic reality.” In keeping with that idea (and the director’s own history), the protagonist is a North Korean refugee who arrived in the USA when she was 10 and was constantly rejected, but that’s about all we know of her. She’s a young woman of few words, an enigma to all, even perhaps to herself. The sudden appearance of her supernatural powers is equally enigmatic and unexplained, which is one of the film’s strengths. Hudson’s Bonnie is the reverse, a motor-mouth who rarely shuts up and who constantly tells anyone in earshot what she’s thinking and feeling. She is happy in her skin but readily prepared to take advantage of the golden opportunity she sees in Mona Lisa and Hudson plays her with relish. She’s terrific.
Another common trait to Amirpour’s oeuvre is a killer soundtrack and the collection of music heard here is outstanding. It’s as interesting and intriguing and as unclassifiable as the rest of Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon. If you’re in the mood for an original cinematic and aural experience, this film’s for you. Like Officer Harold’s fortune cookie said, “Forget what you know.”