Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon – first-look review

No one can crit­i­cise the vibes of Ana Lily Amirpour’s New Orleans-set hor­ror com­e­dy, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon. The vibes are immac­u­late. Scuzzed-up neon colours, Tech­no deep cuts and a carousel of chancers mar­ried to a propul­sive edit­ing tech­nique make this the coolest extend­ed music video con­cept to play at the 2021 Venice Film Fes­ti­val. Beware, though, to those search­ing for some­thing deep­er, for scratch at the sur­face and the whole edi­fice comes away under your fingernails.

This is not at the door of Jeon Jong-seo – last seen in Lee Chang-dong’s Burn­ing – who grounds the whole cir­cus as Mona Lisa Lee, an escaped psy­chi­atric patient with mind-con­trol pow­ers. The film opens with her break­ing out of the insti­tu­tion where she has been incar­cer­at­ed for 12 years, after com­pelling two guards to hurt them­selves via hyp­no­sis. In a film world pop­u­lat­ed by ani­mat­ed Hal­loween cos­tumes, she stands out by remain­ing impassive.

When urges rise up out of her dead­pan pres­ence they are deeply endear­ing. At first, all she wants are cheese puffs and, unwise to the ways of the world, she tries to stroll out of a con­ve­nience store with­out pay­ing for them. Com­ing to her res­cue is ami­able, psy­che­del­ic t‑shirt wear­ing drug deal­er ​“Fuzz” (so called because of his soft hair) who coughs up for the puffs as a result of an instant attrac­tion to Mona. She is still wear­ing a strait-jack­et, which he thinks looks cool.

Fuzz is played by Ed Skrein, the evil racist cop in If Beale Street Could Talk. His chill, help­ful good nature shows ver­sa­til­i­ty. He is con­tent to be used by Mona. She lis­tens to his roman­tic over­tures while giv­ing no sign that it has gone in, but flees as soon as cop Offi­cer Harold (Craig Robin­son) shows up. He is the cat to her mouse through­out the film and the chase is osten­si­bly the spine of the sto­ry, although digres­sions abound.

What to say about the role of strip­per Bon­nie Belle as played by Kate Hud­son? She takes Mona in and soon realis­es that mind-con­trol can be utilised to get peo­ple to hand over their cash. Styled like the thou­sands of slum­ming-it-Hol­ly­wood-actress­es that came before her in cut offs, heels and tight tees, she speaks in an inex­plic­a­ble, chewy New Jer­sey accent, swag­ger­ing all over the shop like a drunk­en sailor.

Bon­nie has a child, the pre­co­cious and long-suf­fer­ing Char­lie (Evan Whit­ten). After a rocky start, he and Mona become pals, pre­sum­ably because chil­dren and the men­tal­ly unusu­al share a cer­tain inno­cence? Who knows. Not Amir­pour, who seems to have con­jured these char­ac­ters after read­ing a graph­ic nov­el and eat­ing too much cheese before bed.

Char­ac­ter motive is not a fac­tor in this uni­verse where, ambi­ence rules and con­sis­tent­ly deliv­ers. Gen­uine affec­tion is con­jured by style choic­es. The sight of the down­beat Mona wear­ing a ​‘RAVE TO THE GRAVE’ tee and star-shaped pur­ple sun­glass­es is charm­ing, as are the music cues that sound­tracks her every move. In a sense this is Amirpour’s most hon­est film. Unlike her pre­vi­ous ones, which struck a faux somber tone, this wears its neon, fun-lov­ing heart on its sleeve.