It’s difficult to determine precisely what genre Angelina Jolie’s upcoming movie “Without Blood” is. Based on Italian novelist Alessandro Baricco’s novel of the same name, the film follows a young girl over decades as she grabbles with the complex realities of war, trauma, and violence in an unnamed 20th-century country. So, which genre is it? A war film? A modern fable? In Variety’s piece about the upcoming film, Jolie has an answer of her own. “A Western? We’ve embraced that.”
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A western it is. Despite shooting the film on location in Italy this past summer, Jolie cast predominately Mexican actors in the main roles, including Salma Hayek and Demián Bichir in the leads. Is that a deliberate choice on Jolie’s part? Of course. For Jolie, making the film’s backdrop unclear helps emphasize the story’s universal but highly nuanced take on war and revenge. “This film raises different questions,” said Jolie. “There is no clear good and bad in this film, even though there is clearly bad, horrible, horrific and criminal behavior.”
“Without Blood” follows Nina, played by Hayek, who, as a child, witnesses her father and brother’s death at the hands of enemies in a wartorn land. She escapes by hiding underneath her family’s farmhouse floor, because even though one of the murderers, played by Bichir, sees her, he says nothing. Decades later, the pair meet again at an art nouveau cafe and consider their shared history. Jolie first read the book in 2016, following her divorce from Brad Pitt, and it profoundly affected her.
“I read it right as I was going through the beginning of a very dark time in my life, I read it in the month that followed my divorce,” said Jolie about the book. “It had the effect on me that it’s had on so many people. I didn’t understand that when I first read it. I just knew the book had a profound effect on me. I think it’s one of those pieces of art, of somebody’s intuition and mind, that puts something forward that has so much truth in it about who we are as people.” And as for the film’s themes of war, revenge, and forgiveness, “The reality of these never-ending wars we have has helped me to look at violence and trauma and revenge in very different ways, and there is no easy answer,” says Jolie.
Jolie’s upcoming film is the first of her three-year deal with Fremantle, which she signed in March this year. Pre-production on “Without Blood” started shortly after she and Fremantle completed the deal. It’s Jolie’s first directed film since 2017’s “First They Killed My Father.”
So, is “Without Blood” really a Western? With the film’s shootouts, rustic atmosphere, and painter Andrew Wyeth as a major inspiration for the film’s cinematography, the film should match the genre’s look and tone. However, expect the movie to be anything but a traditional Western in theme, as frontier justice doesn’t comply with either Jolie’s or Baricco’s vision or sentiment to this story. Expect a mid-late 2023 release for “Without Blood.”