Blonde makes it clear how disruptive it is to be public property ★★★★☆

Everyone wants something from Marilyn Monroe. She is the ideal canvas tounleash theories or fantasies. It’s part of her iconic status as an actress,sex symbol and cultural phenomenon. Sixty years after her death – she died ofan overdose of tranquilizers at the age of 36 – she still appeals to theimagination.

If everyone is pulling you, trying to touch you, color you, who are you? It isa central question in blonde the Netflix film by Andrew Dominik, whichpreviously included Killing Them Softly (2012) and The Assassination ofJesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) directed.

blonde shows Norma Jeane, as she was called, as a woman without an anchor.Her self-image is severely damaged during her miserable childhood and becomesincreasingly fragmented. Of course, it doesn’t help that she’s created analter ego, the ever-radiant Marilyn Monroe.

blonde is not a biopic. The film is based on the 2000 novel of the same nameby Joyce Carol Oates, who took plenty of creative liberties to get insideMonroe’s head. The book contains, among other things, invented diaryfragments, letters and poems. In a similar way, designed as a subjectivepalace of mirrors, Dominik guides the viewer through the possible thoughts andmemories of the tormented movie star.

What blonde wants to make clear is how degrading it is to be publicproperty, however disruptive it may be, especially if there is no stablefoundation. Dominik succeeds brilliantly in this. His film is a nightmarishdescent into the hell that was Monroe’s life: she was repeatedly abused, bothphysically and mentally. While her intelligence and acting talent werechronically underestimated, the traumas piled up. No wonder she took refuge inever heavier drugs.

Dominik uses a baroque, alienating style. At times it seems like a contest incurious camera angles (the scene from the womb wins), but it’s inventive, andoften compelling. In all that visual violence, actress Ana de Armas is theemotional center. The Armas is so good—all nerves and fragility anddevastation—that you can’t help but worry about her mental state. Her actingis a tour de force that involves either complete surrender or incredibletechnique – Oscar-worthy in both cases.

The vision of blonde on Monroe it is clear: she was a victim of her time andher environment. That is of course against the wrong foot of people who wouldhave liked to see something different. A feminist heroine who exudes power,for example, or just something a little more cheerful – something that doesn’tmake the film feel nauseous or partly guilty. Some critics accused Dominik ofexploiting Monroe in his own way, showing her in all her vulnerability.

The irony is that blonde it is precisely about this penchant forappropriation. Marilyn Monroe doesn’t belong to all of us, Dominik showsimpressively. blonde shows a Monroe (not the Monroe) who simply can’t liveup to our expectations because it rips her to shreds.