THOUGHTS AND VVIBES: Blond Vronsky took Anna Karenina (2012) to another level

Hear me out, I’ve been reading Anna Karenina and in the book, Vronsky is the classic tall, dark and handsome man but I think, if the movie had kept this physical appearance like he is canonically, the movie would not have the right seasoning, it would feel like it was too much trouble for an average reward.

What I love about Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina is the way the whole story is told visually, the way the colors and the costumes, the takes, and the acting tell you the story without the need for words. To me, visually the story is so clear that when you put it all together with the screenplay, you want to scream because it’s almost overwhelming.

The way I see it is that blond, starry-eyed Vronsky, wearing white and pastel blue, glowing with youth is what makes us believe that it is worth it, the whole story, the whole affair is worth it. Anna is not giving up her life for any man, she is throwing it all away for the living, breathing image of a fairy tale prince, a hero, the narrative is already told before anything even happens because this angelic young Vronsky looks like the image the average person has of the beautiful (in eurocentric standards) prince, riding the white horse, who is going to save the princess. I know it’s not the way it’s set in the movie but as a visual narrative, it’s just so fitting. This and the way the movie is directed makes you agree with Anna, not Alexei, and it’s not that Alexei Alexandrovich is an old boring man who doesn’t love her, it is the shift from an average marriage to a glorious fairytale-like love affair.

The color palette of his clothes is simple and even childishly so, the kind you could find in Disney Princess’ movies, made to make Vronsky look like a vision, like he stands apart from everything else in Anna's world, like in the train station scene after they meet when his cap is the only white dot on the screen. In a world of gray, black, natural and deep colors; he is a breath of fresh air, he stands apart from reality, like a mirage.

And to me Vronsky has to look “childish”, young, fresh like pastel colors and summer attire, a serious-faced grown man wearing the same colors as Alexei Alexandrovich, who knows a lot about life, would not be caught in a situation like that. He would not let himself love Anna to the point of disgrace and even take the blame for it, but he does because he has to feel like a teenager HE HAS TO FEEL LIKE HE CAN BEND THE RULES OF SOCIETY TO HIS FAVOUR, HE HAS TO FEEL LIKE HE CAN WIN, and it contrasts with Anna’s husband because Alexei Alexandrovich is always trying to bring her back to reality, to save his and her reputation, he is a good man but he is not a hero, and the visuals tell you this so clearly, take them away and it could be way more difficult to understand it, it’s the divinization of the man (2009, p.31,32) that Mario Queiroz talks about in his study “O Herói Desmascarado” (The Unmasked Hero, free translation) when he says courage and strength are the qualities of a hero and courage is associated with beauty.

The hero is different and conventionally beautiful, his clothes and accessories set him apart from other men, he is superior and you can see that, and intentional or not, Vronsky’s costume design represents exactly this in the movie.

Not only him, but Kitty’s palette is the same and to me, it represents how in Levin’s narrative, Kitty is his fairytale, his “hero”, his glory but because neither is married and their love is allowed, “pure” before society, so they have a happy ending

Back to Vronsky’s color palette, it shifts by the end of the movie, when everything goes down you see him become grayer and grayer, he is not the shiny, arrogant, happy man who could do whatever he wanted as he was before, he is strangled by the rules of society and it’s tiring him out.

But if he was a brunette it simply would not have the same effect, as well thought and as the rest of the production is, take away his blond hair and the look of childish-like desperation, desire, and admiration you see in Aaron Taylor Johnson’s too young face and it just doesn’t read as worth it. In this scenario, Anna is guilty, it’s not a fairytale without the blond hair, the desperate eyes of a teenager with a crush, and the white uniform because our minds are programmed to read it this way. Without them it’s not justified passion, it’s just cheating.

And that’s why I think Joe Wright’s decision to make Vronsky the embodiment of the golden youths (as he said in the Bluray commentary) was so right, it made the movie go from a drama to a tragedy, by making the narrative a little bit easier to read, the visuals tell you who you should root for and what are the character’s roles so you have more time to simply feel the dialogue and the twists and turns of the story, making it intense enough to make you cry and want to scream.

MEDICATED VVIBES and also, I got a job

Hello friends, it is I, Helena, coming to tell you I AM FINALLY MEDICATED, I have been suffering from anxiety since I was 16, actually my whole life but it only started really affecting me at 16, I also have a suspicion I have ADHD and no one noticed because I have always had good grades. AND I AM FINALLY ON MEDICATION, today is my first day taking it but I just hope I can write better content for you people! Content that has a beginning a middle and an end!!! What a dream!!!!

I also want to announce that I got a job! It does mean that I will have less time to write but let's hope with the medication I can still get both done! And this is supposed to be, at least, a one-year project, so don't worry, I will be here at least until October 2021. 

I just wanted to share the good news so you have a little more info on what is going on in my life and also thank the enormous (in my view) traffic there's been on the blog, I never even dared to imagine so many people would see the stuff that I write, so thank you so much for reading the thoughts of a very confused goblin.

I think that's it for today, love you bebehs!

VVIBE WITH ME: a loving review of Father of All Motherfuckers by Green Day

The fanbase hated Green Day’s latest album, Father of All…(implied motherfuckers bcs I’m sure Spotify would have flagged it) but I didn’t, and here is why:

I did not vvibe deeply with it, I’m not gonna lie, but Green Day has had a very long journey in the industry and they finally have the autonomy, the respect and the means to do whatever they want, so I don’t think it’s weird that they wanted to do something experimental.

That’s how this album felt to me, experimental, like American Beauty/American Psycho by Fall Out Boy, the pop mess that was so fun to listen to but wasn’t really that cohesive, got a little tiring after a while and it really felt like an album made for testing out what the band was capable of doing but still very enjoyable. 

It feels like this is exactly what this new album is supposed to be, fun to make, a little raw and a little messy, but the blueprint of an absurdly good next album, like Fall Out Boy’s Mania, which not only made a lot of sense as an evolution from AB/AP but it felt glorious, new and timeless at the same time, the kind of album that quickly became one of my favorites and had so many feelings tangled in it that even though I rarely listen to it these days, I absolutely adore it, 3 years after it’s release it provokes emotions so intense that it feels like the first time I heard it.

Green Day is a band that has evolved and keeps evolving album after album, to me it was actually weird to see them release Revolution Radio, an album that seems to me like a copy of American Idiot. They have grown and their albums sound like that, they sound like men who keep getting better and better for themselves and not for their audience, so I think Father of All… was a courageous fuck you to the music industry and to some of their fans still stuck in a 1993 album and I vvibe DEEPLY with that. 

I absolutely adore Green Day and have been listening to them since I was 7 and they have been a band longer than I have been a person. I mean 34 years to 22? The band was already in middle school by the time I decided to show up. And they have grown, from young adults when they released Dookie to actual middle-aged men, and I don’t like this culture of expecting artists to keep making the same things through 30 years, I think it’s what people think they want but when it happens, see Red Hot Chilli Peppers, they don’t like it. 

I believe fans exist to support and to understand artists and their decisions. As a fan of Green Day, I think we have to be grateful that they are still a band and still releasing new songs, also, still giving 300% of energy at every single concert. I always say a Green Day concert is an experience in itself, the way Billie Joe leads the crowd, the way he is 100% present, it’s a difficult thing to find these days, it’s raw, it’s glorious.

So I think Father of All… is good, not because I love it, but because I feel like I understand where it comes from, and am just happy they are still growing and experimenting and happy to be doing it as a band and the fact that they decide to share it with us, I love that. I think, considering the albums that come before, but not Revolution Radio, so yeah, the trilogy, it’s simply growth, evolution and I can almost feel them laughing through it.

In conclusion, I don’t think Father of All… is their best album, but I think it is the first glance we got of one.