Angelina Jolie’s latest directorial project, Without Blood, struggles to match the potency of her advocacy work with a film that lacks the sharp impact she aims for. The film, based on Alessandro Baricco’s elusive novel, explores the aftermath of an unspecified conflict through the lives of Nina and Tito, played by Salma Hayek Pinault and Demián Bichir. While Jolie has previously tackled real historical conflicts in In the Land of Blood and Honey and First They Killed My Father, Without Blood opts for abstraction over specificity, which diminishes its emotional resonance.
Baricco’s novel intentionally avoids pinpointing a specific conflict, a strategy meant to universalize the story but often resulting in a disconnected narrative. The film’s abstract conversations and heavy-handed Western motifs fail to anchor the drama, leaving the leads grappling with a script that lacks clarity and direction. Although the film contains visually striking moments, such as a dramatic opening tracking shot and stylish slow-motion sequences, these are often overshadowed by the film’s muddled narrative and didactic tone.
Jolie’s attempt to infuse the film with a rich, sepia-toned style and genre tropes—from Western iconography to melodramatic flourishes—feels like a compensatory effort for the film’s emotional void. Despite these shortcomings, Without Blood finds a fleeting, poignant note in its final moments, where the unresolved ambiguity leaves the characters’ futures uncertain.
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