Drifters in the Night: Mona Lisa and The Blood Moon + Interview with director Ana Lily Amirpour

By Elle Haywood

In the world of Ana Lily Amirpour, there are no rules. Her films transcend genres, her characters are strikingly bold yet possess a subtle tenderness, and her soundtracks transform the cinema into a dancefloor. Her latest story follows the journey of Mona (Jeon Jong-seo), a young South-Korean woman, as she breaks out of a psychiatric hospital, after discovering her telekinetic abilities during a full moon. Cautiously observing her surroundings, she stumbles into the night, the bloodied sleeves of her straitjacket trailing behind her. As she wanders around the dream-like landscape of New Orleans in the early hours, we witness her trust of others begin to grow, from bonding with sweet drug-dealer Fuzz (Ed Skrein), fleeing the pursuit of Officer Harold (Craig Robinson) and the police department, before winding up in the company of single-mum and pole-dancer Bonnie Belle (Kate Hudson), and her 11-year old son Charlie (Evan Whitten). 

The red carpet was rolled out for the UK Premiere of Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon at the London Film Festival, where English-Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour was joined by scene stealing cast member Ed Skerin. I met Ana at a hotel in the West End the morning after. Still reveling in the glow of the premiere, she recounted that she “just felt the movie with the audience, and they got all the nuance and the jokes, the humour, the tone; it was such a good vibe.”

The film is very much a love letter to the weird girl finding her way in the world, but also toys around with our preconceptions of people. As Mona heads towards a convenience store in search of food, she meets Fuzz and his misfit companions loitering around outside. They eye her up like snakes in the grass, questioning why she’s alone and what she’s up to. Yet they allow her space, and despite Fuzz teasing for a kiss, he is surprisingly caring, giving her space to rest and lending her his psychedelic top so she can change out of the hospital clothing. Unbeknownst to him, mere hours earlier she had used her powers against those who tried to restrain her, including smashing a security guard’s head into a TV screen and possessing her nurse to stab herself repeatedly in the leg with nail clippers. It’s less gory than Amirpour’s earlier work but it still packs an emotional and visceral punch during unexpected moments. Amirpour views the film as not just a product of its troubled times in which it was made but also an antidote to it. “I had an interesting feeling with this movie, maybe because of what we have been through as humanity over the last few years. There is this energetic quest for freedom in the heart of this movie. I think we all want that and are craving that and have been depleted to such a degree. Be Mona Lisa for two hours and go find yourself a little adventure.“  Though there are no pandemics on screen the influence of isolation a re-examination of your place in the world is something that carried though, “I was editing The Bad Batch, that is when I really started writing the script [for Mona]. Then we started shooting in 2018 to 2019, but by March [2020] when COVID hit, I was two weeks away from locking the picture. Then it was like ‘forget what you know’ really became the anthem of the world. Everybody had to forget what they know. I had finished both sound and colour, I had three months.  I was lucky because I had something: that was a godsend for me.”

Amirpour has a love of fantasy and the dreamlike, and builds her films around the minds of her characters; it is their world to openly embrace. The full moon is a vital symbol in many religions and mythologies, sometimes as a sign of wisdom and power for lunar deities. In folklore it is a guiding light for lost souls and the Book of Joel from the Hebrew Bible, it signifies the beginning of the end times. For Mona Lisa, her telekinesis seems to be awakened as the sky glows with this total lunar eclipse, the light leading her away from danger, and toward her adventures. The shot of the clouds drifting past the solar orb is a frequent image used in the film, a reminder of the mystic and unpredictable nature of the story and of Mona Lisa’s potential, both as a horror film, a coming-of-age story and a superhero origin mythology. “I guess it’s some base level. Because it is a superhero movie in some ways, it is a hybrid-fusion new-school superhero movie. Superhero movies are just this one-dimensional agenda to save the world, and she’s just trying to figure out how to live in the world which is what I think we should all use our superhero powers to figure out. That would actually be really useful! If you’re making this type of character, the joy of getting to be like - what is her power? You’re creating this awesome, powerful type of character and I guess she is the kind of beautiful weirdo that I want to see, in a way that I can’t explain! The thing that is so cool about her and her power is (this is a bit like psychoanalysis) that she is a girl who gets to move through this crazy, big bad world with absolute freedom to go towards whatever fascinates her. She would never have to be like ‘is that safe, what’s gonna happen’. She always knows she is in control, and so she gets to go absolutely wherever she wants and doesn’t have to negotiate the risks of a decision, and goes towards what inspires her. She can redefine herself constantly, and all those things appeal to me. That’s joyful, that is freedom.”

Mona has some similarities to Angés Varda’s character of Mona in Vagabond (1985), two unapologetically headstrong drifters who exist as outsiders of their community, yet captivate those around them. As an audience, we are witness to Mona’s spectrum of feelings: a deep hunger for something as mundane as craving cheese-puffs, to the shivering repressed anger as she screams about not wanting to go back to the hospital. While her emotions are met with fear from others, 11-year-old Charlie seems to identify with her frustrations, his own loneliness caused by school bullies and short-tempered Bonnie (Kate Hudson), which sees him escape into the metal and rock world. Mirroring the iconic dance scene of A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night where the titular vampire (The Girl) and love-interest Arash engage in this trance-like disco dream-state, Charlie teaches Mona to mosh around the room, shaking out their limbs to the thundering rage of guitar chords. 

The female protagonists in all of Amirpour’s films possess a quiet, sometimes unsettling, confidence and determination in their actions; there are no maidens in distress here. Bonnie derives reasonable satisfaction from her work in the strip club and she’s pretty clued on to the occasional douchebag behaviour of her clients. She quickly cottons on to the benefits of having Mona around to possess the men as she dances, convincing them to empty their pockets as the notes scatter around her glittering 7-inch heels. Amirpour doesnt make Bonnie a stereotypical sidekick or a two dimensional stripper with a heart of gold, in fact, each character really feels like they are the star of their own life and we are all in their story. “Bonnie is constantly getting beat down and constantly getting back up,” she explains, “It’s interesting when you do that to a character who isn’t looking for a rescue. Bonnie is her own hero, and the thing about that kind of character, such as a stripper or dancer in a strip club, is it’s often the case that there is a moral lesson [for them] to learn or that they should change their life, but no. She does this job, it’s an honest job, this is one of the economics of the world. She does it, she’s a single mom, and she has odd hours but she’s providing for her kid and she’s a fucking good mom.”

Elegant stylization and bold iconography are core elements that make Amirpour’s work stand out so much and shatter any preconceptions of categorisation. The gothic disco elements of A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night of a skateboarding chador-cloaked vampire, layered with the Spaghetti-Western undertones of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, builds a world so familiar yet captivatingly surreal. Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon is no exception. From the neon glow and pulsing base of the strip club, to the glittery glow-in-the-dark painted toads on the ceiling of Fuzz’s apartment and posters of metal bands decking out Charlie’s room, everyone is welcome in Amirpour’s world. And this is very much Amirpour’s world, one with a mood and aesthetic that is wholly unique to her “I see it more as surrealist, or fantasy. The catalogue and categorising of films isn’t up to me, I think Mona Lisa is uncategorisable and she herself becomes the category and that’s what I would like to be,” she smiles, “Let’s just call it Ana Lily Amirpour movies!"

Mona Lisa and The Blood Moon had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival, with the UK Premiere taking place at the 2021 London Film Festival. The film is currently seeking UK distribution at the time of publishing. 

Elle Haywood a freelance film and culture writer, festival juror and submissions reviewer. She is currently the Associate Editor at Take One Magazine and has written for Take One, Vague Visages, Film Stories, JumpCut and Next Best Picture. She is studying a Masters in Film Studies, Programming and Curation at the National Film & Television School. Her work specialises in international film festivals focusing on Scandinavia and Western Europe, sociopolitical events and independent filmmaking.

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