While there are plenty of stories worth telling, equally as important is the way in which you tell it. Such is the trouble with “Without Blood,” the latest directorial effort from Angelina Jolie that has plenty of ideas worth grappling with, but is never quite able to capitalize on them. Based on the novel of the same name by Alessandro Baricco, it’s a film that takes place almost entirely in one room where two characters, played by Salma Hayek Pinault and Demián Bichir, reflect on a violent event that continues to reverberate into every facet of their future. It’s a film about war, cycles of violence, how it is that we deal with loss and whether revenge is truly the solution, but it never feels like the film is able to fully do justice to any of them. For every moment where it seems like it’s getting somewhere more thoughtful, it will dance away into something else, lacking focus even as it remains faithful to the rather short source material.
That the performances from Hayek Pinault and Bichir are consistently reserved with bursts of emotion almost makes watching “Without Blood” a hauntingly thoughtful experience. Almost, but not quite. Instead, it’s a film with its heart in the right place yet only a faint pulse.
The film, which premiered Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival, centers on a moment in history where three men attack a home out in an unknown land (the story doesn’t have a specific setting). It’s there where a father, who the attackers firmly believe to be responsible for war crimes inflicted on people they care about, and his two children unsuccessfully try to fight off the attack. Father and son are killed, though the young daughter is spared by the boy who discovers her hiding spot under the floor.
Many decades later, Nina (Hayek Pinault) approaches Tito (Bichir) when he is working at a kiosk selling lottery tickets and newspapers. He soon realizes that she is the young girl he saw hiding under the floor all those years ago. Is she here to seek revenge? Possibly, as the others involved in the killing have ended up dead, though first she wants to sit down to talk with Tito.
This is the meat of the film: just two people sitting across from each other and talking. We get flashbacks to accompany their reflections, but we also have extended stretches where it’s just us in this small establishment as minutes turn into hours. We hear about how Nina’s life, already forever upended after her father was killed, has been a hard one full of pain. At one point, Tito remarks on how it sounds like she doesn’t really think any of this matters — her tone remains consistent. She retorts that it actually all matters to her, before continuing ahead in covering most of her life. This ends up being a point that highlights the struggles that “Without Blood” keeps running into. Yes, everything matters, but for a film that’s only 91 minutes, there is probably a need to sit with the painful questions rather than just move right on to the next one. Alas, this rarely happens as both characters have their own recollections, memories, and goals that they’re trying to sort through, leaving little sense we’re getting anywhere over this long chat.
Yet keep talking they do, uncovering shattering details that then get brushed over. Both Nina and Tito seem content to just talk their way through everything to get to some sort of resolution. The moments where you get the sense that they might be remembering things differently, or see them begin to have disagreements over what’s most important to talk about, is where it feels like “Without Blood” could start to cut a bit deeper. This too passes as we then get back to the duo delivering their monologues with an almost detached tone, recollection after recollection. It’s not even that their performances are bad, they’re succeeding at what they’re clearly intending to do, though it feels misconceived from the jump, feeling too carefully curated rather than genuinely contemplative.
Where a film like the recent “Our Father, the Devil” thoughtfully grapples with the violence of a conflict and how it can continue to rip through the future, “Without Blood” is merely going through the motions of raising these questions, never getting anywhere meaningful. The more devastating scenes in Jolie’s film are ones she revisits over and over, ultimately cheapening their impact when using them more sparingly would serve the story far better. While the two characters are navigating a combination of detached numbness and unshakable pain, the way the film presents this with shots of extreme violence or a drop of blood falling on a foot in what is almost a loop leaves the audience feeling numb. It’s a problem that, no matter how committed the performances are, it can’t ever fully overcome.
Not only does the film’s conclusion then feel quite rushed, it’s hard to say that everything that preceded it was patient enough either. The story Jolie is seeking to tell in “Without Blood” is certainly one worth telling, it’s just a shame this isn’t the film to do it successfully.
“Without Blood” is currently seeking distribution.
