nicolas :)’s review published on Letterboxd:
I honestly found it really difficult at first to make up and formulate my exact thoughts for this. I would also like to mention that I can absolutely get behind everyone who despises this film for being an exploitational piece on an actual person's life. And Andrew Dominik is totally a disgusting piece of shit with those fucked up comments he made as of recently.
That said though, from a filmmaking perspective this is very clearly my kind of movie and I was into this. It's got its very own unique surrealist style to it, totally like a late night fever dream. The amazing cinematography combined with Nick Cave's score makes for an ethereal atmosphere that I was totally on board with a lot of the time.
As for the contents of the film, fictional pieces on tragic real life people should first of all clearly not be a thing. With this and Jesse James, Dominik seems to really like exploring myths about actual people. The problem is that this can't really work with a tragic person like Monroe who has been exploited and ridiculed by the media so fucking much already. Add to that how male gazey this is in some areas, and it makes this quite disrespectful as a piece on her supposed life.
I very much disagree that this is Fire Walk With Me if it hated Laura Palmer, a comparison I've read a few times now. In fact, I found this to be rather empathetic towards its main character (although that good spirit loses itself a bit in the third act in my opinion).
As a film to be taken in, I suppose this really resonated with me. As a film on an actual person's life, fictional or not, this could have been different. Gonna let this sink in for now and add rating and ranking later.
