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| A strikingly designed, chilling poster for Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin |
When a convicted double murderer is released from jail, our protagonist decides to leave his life as a drifter with a steely determination: To kill the man he is convinced killed his own parents.
From this basic premise, Blue Ruin weaves a messy situation, and the title seems to point to the collective hole of hatred, thirst for vengeance and bitterness that draws many of the characters here into its abyss, - while also being a reference to the Pontiac that serves as the home for the protagonist.
The film is written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room (2015)). It is fascinatingly simple and well shot (also by Saulnier), so that landscapes at first seem to have been pressed flat just to later attain a certain depth.
SPOILER The story seems like it may have been inspired by a real story of a family massacre. Just as in Saulnier's following film Green Room, guns and talk of them takes up significant space, while character information and sympathetic insights into the egotistical, bloodthirsty protagonist remain scarce. This inhibits Blue Ruin from becoming truly suspenseful, and despite its admirable qualities, it ultimately becomes forgettable to me because I feel like an intruder in its universe.
Related post:
Jeremy Saulnier: Green Room (2015) or, I Was a Punk Band Nazi Killer!
Saulnier and Blair give an interview about the film at the Locarno Film Festival in 2013 here
Cost: 420k $ - 1 mil. $ (different reports)
Box office: 0.9 mil. $
= Somwhere between minor flop and huge flop
[Blue Ruin premiered 17 May (Cannes) and runs 90 minutes. Saulnier and producer-star-composer Macon Blair (The Florida Projects (2017)) were getting disillusioned with their possible futures as filmmakers and wanted to make Blue Ruin as a last film together. Funding came together partly through a crowdfunding campaign asking for 35k $ and Saulnier's savings. The film was inspired by revenge movies and current, upsetting violent crimes that Saulnier has stated "made me miserable." Shooting took place in Virginia and Delaware. The film opened #52 in 7 cinemas in North America, where it peaked at #37 and in 61 cinemas different weeks) and grossed 258k $ (26 % of the total gross). The biggest market was the UK with 527k $ (53.1 %). North America was the 2nd biggest market, and France was the 3rd biggest with 169k $ (17 %). The different budget accounts leave the film's theatrical performance difficult to ascertain: At best a minor flop, - at worst a huge flop. Roger Ebert gave the filma 3.5/4 star review, translating to two notches higher than this one. The film won a prize in Cannes, was nominated for an award at the AFI Fest, a British Independent Film Award and an Independent Spirit Award; it also won a National Board of Review award and was on many critics' top 10 lists of the year. Saulnier returned with Green Room (2015). Blue Ruin is certified fresh at 96 % with a 8/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Blue Ruin?
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