The writer considers Blonde by Andrew Dominik a masterpiece and hands down the best film of last year, and also the notoriously bigoted Academy, while totally (and predictably) rejecting the film, could not do without nominate Ana de Armas at the Oscars 2023 as best actress.
For this reason the Cuban actress is these days ‘advancing the cause’ of the film with a series of promotional interviews, essentially ends in themselves (after all, the 2023 Oscars seem largely directed towards Everything Everywhere all at once and it will almost certainly be Michelle Yeoh who wins the award for best actress, overtaking De Armas and Cate Blanchett’s beautiful and complex tar) but still interesting to read for how they seem to want to keep the point at the basis of the film: Blonde is deliberately macho and cruel, to throw the horrors suffered by the protagonist in the face of the public. A decidedly polarizing choicewhich Ana de Armas however shares:
“It’s not a movie made to please people or to please the public, it’s hard to watch and a very bitter pill to swallow, especially for people in the industry”said the actress. ”I feel the film also makes one feel the audience as a participant in the action. Hollywood contributed at the time, and still contributes, to the exploitation of the bodies of actors, who are people who are constantly in the public eye. We, the audience, act in looking. And I am convinced that many people have been offended because the film sort of points the finger at them“.
Practically the antithesis of the Oscar-winning film prototype: Blonde is now streaming on Netflix, the Oscars 2023 will be delivered on March 12 next.