Salma Hayek Pinault in Angelina War Drama

A woman (Salma Hayek Pinault) walks into a sparsely populated square enjoying afternoon coffee, magazines and a lottery booth. She approaches the stall, picks up a stack of newspapers, and poses a question to the waiter (played by Demian Bichir). Her delivery was studied, as if a more natural rhythm struggled with inherent seriousness. She begged the man to close up shop and have a drink with her. Her polite sweetness became more urgent at his rejection. This is a command, not a request.

Premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, no blood It is Angelina Jolie’s latest foray into directing. The actress caused a stir this festival with her performance in Pablo Larrain’s film MariaThis sparsely plotted fable is adapted from the novella of the same name by Italian writer Alessandro Barrico. no blood An indirect investigation of the psychological and generational toll of war.

Jolie is treading familiar ground here: some of her previous directing credits include In the land of blood and honey, indestructible and They killed my father firstsetting their actions against the harrowing backdrop of war. While these other films were based on details of real conflicts such as the Bosnian War or the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, no blood Does not claim any land or era. This lack of focus might have worked in the hands of a more adventurous helmsman, but Julie’s direction could have been as stiff as the woman’s first encounter with the kiosk attendant. Despite bursts of wisdom, especially when conveying the fractured quality of trauma narratives, no bloodIts ambiguity ultimately weakens many of the lessons.

As the man and woman settled into a nearby restaurant, an uneasy tension hung in the air. She begins to tell her story, part of which Julie demonstrates early on in a confident stage scene. Her name is Nina, and when she was a little girl, three men broke into her home and executed her father (Alfredo Herrera) and brother (Alessandro D’Antuono). As her father’s screams flooded the bungalow and her brother’s blood dripped on her ankles, Nina hid silently in a cave beneath the floorboards.

Her fate became the stuff of legend in the nameless country, and a war between the two factions brewed for years. Whether the conflict is regional or political is never made clear and, in Jolie’s view, irrelevant. no blood More concerned with how all wars harm people, from the youngest victims to the oldest perpetrators. Much of the film takes place in a café, where Nina and the man (whose name we later learn is Tito) exchange different versions of her fate. In Nina’s account, she is adopted by a pharmacist (Pedro Hernandez) who bets her to a count (Luis Alberti). She eventually married at the age of 14 and gave birth to three sons to the wealthy baron. As Tito tells it, Nina’s union was a botched assassination turned marriage arrangement: the Count fell in love with her instead of killing her. The truth lies somewhere between Nina’s scarred memories and Tito’s hazy memories. In between these exchanges, the two men uttered platitudes about the dangers of war (but never went into detail).

The dialogue between Nina and Tito oscillates between gripping and brooding moments, aided by the tense banter of Hayek Pinault and Bichir. Their chemistry is defined by mutual recognition and shared trauma. Hayek Pinault focused on understated gestures—tears welling up in the eyes, clenching a spoon, or pursed lips—to convey the depth of his character’s pain. Bichir nailed the subtle shifts his character required, his innocence becoming less black and white over the course of the film’s brisk 90 minutes.

Still, Jolie’s overly cautious visual language limits the show’s impact. Flashbacks to the pair’s past provide some dynamic moments, such as a bird’s-eye shot showing that Tito has been observing Nina for years, hinting at their interconnected fate. There is beauty here too, with Julie capturing the vivid ocher landscape. For the most part, though, she relies on close-ups, switching between the faces of two diners in a simple edit of Xavier Box and Joel Cox.

Exposing innocent people to conflict is not a provocative stance. But that seems to be the only thing no blood Even more interestingly, it works when it’s not focused on looking at how trauma lives on in the body and shapes the mind. Despite flashes of power, the story ultimately seems too thin to bear the weight of its subject.