“Knowing all I knew about conflict or anger or what we do or revenge, I thought I knew where it was going. I thought I was quite sure where it was going,” Jolie told ABC Audio. “More than that, I thought I knew where I wanted it to go.”
Not only is Jolie familiar with survivors of real-life conflict through her humanitarian work, she’s also directed three films about war and conflict: In the Land of Blood and Honey, Unbroken and First They Killed My Father. She knows the expected story beats in projects like this. Most of the time it’s either “you get the revenge or you don’t” or “you get the resolution or you just don’t,” she said.
But Baricco’s novel does it all differently. Instead, it takes the two leads and has them sit across a table from each other and talk. They learn from each other’s experiences and decide they don’t actually want whatever revenge or resolution they thought they may have wanted prior.
“It matured me. It educated me to read the book,” Jolie said. “I think it’s an important thing to put out there today because there’s so much about being absolute on this side or that side or right or wrong or for or against.”
Jolie hopes audiences learn through this story that it’s OK to say “‘I don’t know’ and ‘I’m trying to listen’ and ‘I am trying to understand’ and ‘I’m still trying to figure out myself.'”
“For any person that’s had any level of trauma or conflict, I think it’s important to want to go more deeply and not just sit with being right,” Jolie said. “It’s an important discussion.”
Jolie adapted Baricco’s book into the screenplay for Without Blood, the new film that is currently playing in select theaters. When it came time to choose who would take on the starring role, Jolie looked to her Eternals co-star Salma Hayek.
Hayek said she and Jolie have “amazing creative teamwork” and that Jolie balances her out really well.
“I put this experience completely separate than any other experience I’ve ever had. It’s just not even, I cannot even compare,” Hayek said. “I’ve had other experiences that have been life-changing experiences in a different way, but this one has to do with the film because I had my judgment about what was happening and the book itself and the character itself. And throughout the process of making the film and being directed by her, I was so open.”
It wasn’t simply that Jolie was “an amazing director,” but Hayek said the film was a “very special experience” because of the knowledge Jolie has about the subject matter.
Jolie “understands war like very few people, because she has been in those places of conflict. And she understands the big scope. And the intimacy of just being a human in conflict,” Hayek said. “On top of it, she’s also an actress, so she understands us like no one. It was just … such a very special set of circumstances coming together that it’s very hard for them to happen again.”
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