Of Angelina Jolie’s five films, four have depicted war. But her latest, “Bloodless,” delves head-on into the painful aftermath of the slaughter.
“I think conflict tends to bring out the worst in our behavior toward each other, and often the best, when those who fight against us or rise above us fight,” Jolie said during an interview at the Cannes Film Festival. diverse Toronto Film Festival Studio. “As artists, a lot of our work is an examination of what it means to be human. So these extremes of the human condition are what we sometimes try to understand and are drawn to. I’m certainly a person, as I’ve traveled and done other things, [humanitarian] “While working in this field, I always wondered why and how.”
Jolie is joined by the film’s stars Salma Hayek Pinault and Demián Bichir, who play Nina and Tito, respectively, two people who were on opposite sides of an unspecified war years ago. Hayek Pinault, for one, admitted she was hesitant to sign on for her second collaboration with Jolie. (They previously starred together in Marvel’s 2021 film “Eternals.”)
“I was terrified to play this role. I didn’t do it right away because she’s suffering so much, my character, and I had to go there and suffer the whole time,” she said. “You can’t expel the pain. You have to keep it boiling and boiling and boiling for hours and days and weeks. So I was terrified and I didn’t want to do it. The more we talked about it… I started to see myself, my own trauma, the trauma of people I know, who are close to me, in this character that was so foreign at first and I didn’t want to go there. I started to realize, ‘What do you mean you don’t want to go? You’ve always been there.’ I started to see how I related to so many women even if it wasn’t after the war. We were all excluded and unseen or mistreated in some way.”
For Bichir, an Oscar nominee for best actor for his role in 2011's “A Better Life,” Jolie provided the tools to expand the film's emotional scope.
“You created the perfect atmosphere for us to get there,” he said, turning to Jolie. “It was like climbing Mount Everest for the first time, not knowing what you were going to face. Angelina equipped us so well and fully equipped with the right shoes and warm jackets and everything so we could get up there and be free.”
Jolie is also promoting her favorite film in Venice, “Maria,” in which the “Girl, Cut Off” Oscar winner plays the famous opera singer Maria Callas. The film is not part of the official TIFF lineup, but Netflix screened “Maria” for festival attendees on Sunday, where Jolie introduced it.
“Without Blood,” which is being touted for a domestic distribution deal, will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival tonight. Jolie noted that the film, shot at Rome’s famed Cinecittà Studios, raises questions about the endless cycle of violence followed by revenge.
“It was something that everyone, especially these two extraordinary actors, had to come to the set with so much humanity,” Jolie added. “We all had to talk about what it was like. Thinking about that pain, thinking about that desire for revenge, thinking about all that pain, Listening To the other side. Can you then let him overwhelm you? Did you really hear? [what the other side is saying]”And can you let him turn you?”
the diverse The Toronto Film Festival Studio is sponsored by J Crew and SharkNinja.
