Before talking about Luc Besson's new film Anna, I want to reminisce about the women in his past films:
In 1990, Anna Parillo played the heroine Nikita in the female agent film Nikita. This is Luc Besson's first female spy film, after that, a beautiful woman who is full of trouble or difficult life, is favored by a mysterious organization, brought to cultivate into a female agent who is fully open to morality, intelligence, physical beauty, and then uses real kung fu and beauty to carry out a series of assassination activities, which has become a tried and tested routine in Luc Besson's movie.
Stills from Nikita
It is worth noting that "Nikita" also opened the way of no return for the amorous French director to choose the heroine as his wife. Oh yes, this one doesn't count, anna Parillo was already Luc Besson's person when she starred in this movie, when they already had a three-year-old child.
1994's "This Killer Is Not Too Cold" is not a big heroine movie, but the little heroine Matilda played by Natalie Portman in the film is one of the most classic Lolita images in the history of film. It is said that the character was also inspired by Luc Besson's personal emotional experiences. After divorcing Anna Parillo that year, our Pisces amorous director quickly fell in love with the French actress Mevin Le Besco, who was only fifteen or sixteen years old. The two fell in love at first sight, quickly fought fiercely, and soon lived together and had a child. It was this Lolita-esque love that inspired Luc Besson to create This Killer Isn't Too Cold.
Stills from "This Killer Isn't Too Cold"
Mewin Le Bescoe
Two years later, Mira Jovovich appeared with The Fifth Element. The model-turned-actress plays the heroine in the film, the red-haired "fifth element" Lilu. Now, Lilu can be considered a superhero. The beautiful woman who was ordered to come to Earth to save mankind joined forces with the other "four elements" earth, qi, water, fire and alien evil forces to fight an arduous battle, and finally won.
Stills from The Fifth Element
It wasn't just Lilu who won, but also Mira Jovovich. Not surprisingly, Luc Besson fell in love with his heroine again, divorcing Lolita and falling in love with Mira Jovovich, who also tailored the film Joan of Arc for his new love.
Stills from Joan of Arc
Next up is "Adella's Extraordinary Adventures" starring female anchor Louise Bourquet. The film is different from Luc Besson's previous films in terms of style and choice of actors. Bourquet was too sweet to be the wide-shouldered, long-legged, and neutral beauty that Luc Besson had always preferred. Probably because of this, the film didn't bring any follow-up stories.
Of course, by the time of Adella's Extraordinary Adventure, Luc Besson had already been with producer's wife, Vigne Sheila, a strong woman who seemed to have managed to rescue the amorous director from the vortex of infatuation with the heroine, at least so far, and the problem had not recurred.
Stills from Adella's Extraordinary Adventures
2014's Superbody is Luc Besson's most talked-about film in recent years. It is adapted from the novel "Comprehension" by Chinese science fiction writer Ted Jiang, which tells the story of a young girl who stimulates the potential of her brain after taking drugs, constantly opening up and hanging in life, breaking through the limitations of the body, connecting electronic devices, breaking through the limitations of consciousness, traveling through time and space... Eventually, the film rises to the philosophical realm of exploring the origins of human beings, which is a bit of a tribute to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Stills from "Superbody"
This time, the actress Lucy is the real "superhero" - "Black Widow" Scarlett Johansson. The standard American chick's face is not very delicate, but the figure may not really be Luc Besson's usual preference, after all, compared to Anna Parillo, the "widow sister" is too short.
The previous history has turned around, mainly to nourish the eyes, and now it is finally time to get back to the point.
"Anna", Luc Besson's new film, because of the violent elements and pornography suspicions, the film is rated R- rated, obviously impossible to release in domestic theaters, but recently with resources, we can also cool down.
Counting the directors' previous works is not just for the sake of eye-catching, another reason is that those films are the predecessors of "Anna". From this new work, the audience can find too many shadows of the previous movie, at best it is the feelings, at worst it is a lot of Luc Besson Black talk about - Jiang Lang is exhausted.
From Nikita, This Killer Isn't Too Cold (French name Léon) to Anna, Luc Besson has always liked to simply and directly use the protagonist's name as a movie title. The title of "Anna" is reminiscent of her ex-wife, Anna Parillo, who portrayed Nikita and Anna today have many similarities.
"Nikita" and "Anna", both heroines are from humble backgrounds, and they are left with no way out by unreliable pig teammates. It all opens with a robbery, with Nikita being dragged by a friend to rob a store and Anna being pulled by her drug-addicted boyfriend. Both groups are amateurish, and as soon as they play, the pig teammates are killed, and Nikita and Anna are left alone, desperate, and have to succumb to the mysterious organization or the KGB secret service organization to start a life.
After becoming a female agent, Anna's profession in disguise is modeling. Sasha Ruth, who plays Anna, is a model and had previously appeared in Luc Besson's last film, Star Agent: City of a Thousand Stars. The Russian supermodel fits the director's aesthetic perfectly. Sasha really looks like Mira Jovovich in The Fifth Element, especially the moment she puts on a red wig in the movie.
Compared with "Nikita" and "The Fifth Element", "Anna" is cooler and more fashionable in terms of styling, action scenes, and film structure. The heroine almost all appears to be a person who does not talk much, kills with one shot, and never procrastinates to stage any bitter battle drama. All the bed scenes have no foreplay, no need for gentleness, all are Mars hitting the earth, overturning the table, kicking down the chair, is a real love action scene.
Beautiful action scenes and beautiful women, these are the two magic weapons of Luc Besson who has walked the rivers and lakes for many years and concocted cool films. In "Anna", he relied on the setting that the heroine is a supermodel to maximize this advantage.
Throughout the movie, Anna didn't know how many sets of clothes she had changed, not a hundred, but dozens. In a collection of fancy assassination missions, Anna changes her appearance, goes in and out of various places, kills people cleanly, and then changes into a new set of clothes and enters and exits the major studios. The whole passage is the big runway that Luc Besson built for Sasha Ruth. acting? If it doesn't exist, the audience will be able to pay for it.
Aside from that, to be honest, Luc Besson really didn't make any substantial innovative contributions to the design of the spy section. But he was clever and played with inverted structures. Throughout the film, there are three reversals from anna's recruitment to the KGB. These three reversals were used to explain Anna's origins and how she had grown into a qualified KGB agent. How she made a deal with the CIA to become a double agent. Finally, how did she conspire with her female demon boss to kill the KGB leader and help the female demon head to the throne, while at the same time buying herself a free body. This kind of reversal is not new, but in a secret agent film, it is quite rare to use it so frequently throughout, and it is a matter of opinion whether you like it or not.
In fact, Luc Besson's "Anna" is not a good time to be released this year. Female agent films, double-sided spy films, Cold War themes are not new, not to mention that just last year, the big cousin Jennifer Lawrence's "Cardinal" was just released. If you count further, in 2017, Charlize Theron, who is also a supermodel, also starred in a movie with the same theme, "Extremely Cold City".
The overall atmosphere of "Cardinal" and "Extremely Cold City" is more gloomy, especially "Cardinal". Compared with these two films, "Anna" is much cooler and better in terms of viewing experience.
The "007" series and the "Fast and Furious" series are real commercial cool films - just do it, don't need to think too much about value and meaning, once you think about it, it is also a relatively grand proposition such as nationalism, love and family. But judging from the several female agent films in front of them, including Luc Besson's previous works, the female agent films seem to have a core theme, which has nothing to do with the national righteousness, and has little to do with the struggle for interests, the most important thing is self-awakening and the search for freedom.
A meme related to the Russian local matryoshka doll runs through the film. As soon as Anna appeared, she was a matryoshka doll seller in the market, nesting dolls layer by layer, she unveiled those exquisite doll images layer by layer, what is the one left in the innermost? She wanted to take a good look.
For this reason, she was ransomed from the brothel by her scumbag boyfriend but became addicted to drugs, for which she was forced to join the KGB and become a double agent. She lingers in various interest groups, lingers on different men, and gambles her life, and this series of dangerous operations has only one purpose, that is, freedom.
Tasks, money, men, bodies, and even feelings are nothing compared to freedom.
At the end of the film, Anna, who has completed her mission, flees the scene, changing into her prepared clothes by the underground drain and taking off her wig, revealing a bald head that symbolizes a new life.
At this time, she put on the black hat. It made me think a little more pretentiously — the hat was like Leon's, and what he failed to achieve in "This Killer Is Not Too Cold" was realized by Anna. From this point of view, Luc Besson really loves the characters in his films.
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