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.