Women with Guns: Rewatch: Anna

2019, Luc Besson (Lucy) -- Amazon

I (re)watch this movie from last year, yet another box office bomb for Besson, to revisit & build upon this category I label Women with Guns. The trope, commonly called Girls with Guns, spawned from the 60s idea(l) of rebellious, violent women ganging together to claim some sort of violence titillation fantasy; I prefer to update it. Am I titillated? Of course, but I also like the exploration of how they empower themselves, how the characters differentiate themselves in a genre that is all too often about men over compensating for one thing or another.

Sasha Luss is a stunning looking woman, from Russia, all pale eyes and lost looks. Browsing through her IG (that abbreviation bothers me; how can you abbreviate with a middle letter?), I see more of her character Anna than I see her. In a movie that Besson considers a spiritual successor to La Femme Nikita, or perhaps his own reboot of the concept, we are presented a beautiful young woman taken from a horrible situation and placed into an even more terrible one. From strung out to hung out, KGB trained assassin and honey-pot, faux Parisian fashion model jammed into an apartment full of other self-serving girls, and expected to court the sleazy older men who are part of the fashion world. She is promised a way out, but even that is taken away from her. So she has to make her own way. 

The movie flips back and forth through time, as we get an aspect of the plot played out, and then we see it again through a different perspective. Each flip adds a bit more to Anna's story, eventually ending up with her full empowerment, her break from the men (and woman) who control her life, her final retribution against those who wish to only take from her. 

I find it strange that Besson would do this movie, perhaps a weak nod at the #MeToo movement, when he himself is a focus of what the movement strives to end. Besson is known to court young actresses, an extension of the casting couch, but via his focus & (likely unwanted) affection. Anna is manipulated by men who use her, but who lust for her all the same. In the end, she manipulates them in return, which if Besson is trying to state something about himself, I could probably hurt myself rolling my eyes. But taken unto itself, the movie does a fine job turning the tables and giving Anna her freedom.