Article by Tommaso Del Latte

Translation by Martina Bigi

With the movie Without Blood, it is clear that civil battles are still the focal point of Angelina Jolie’s directorial career. However, the result fails to achieve the emotional and narrative depth one might expect. Based on a novel by Turin-born writer Alessandro Baricco, the film promises to delve into the psyche of the characters, who are scarred by the violence of the war, but its occasional abstract approach and the lack of genuine emotional development make it an intellectual exercise rather than a truly engaging experience.

The film is set in an undefined time and place, and opens with the violent murder of Nina’s (Salma Hayek) family, as she becomes the victim of a cruel act of revenge. Through a temporal ellipsis, we find adult Nina walking alone toward a newsstand whose owner, Tito (Demián Bichir), is one of the men responsible for the brutal massacre of her family years earlier. The film unfolds through a long conversation between the two characters – a slow and profound dialogue, interrupted by sudden memories emerging like fragments of an unresolved past, carrying the ghosts of old traumas.

The director’s decision to follow accurately the original text, as she stated in the press conference, is a conscious choice but one that risks limiting the film’s cinematic potential. On multiple occasions, this meticulous accuracy to the novel seems to confine the film within the narrow boundaries of the literary language, rather than releasing it through the visual and narrative expression of the cinema. Each scene feels like a tribute that can’t evolve, an echo bouncing off the pages without taking on a life of its own. And just like an echo fading into the infinite, Without Blood leaves the viewer with more questions than answers. And yet, a powerful effect continues to resonate, like the imperceptible whisper of a pain that has never truly been healed.