In the HBO Max documentary Phoenix Rising: Rising From The Ashes, Evan Rachel Wood faces the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of Marilyn Manson. But in addition to that, she appropriates her story in front of and behind the camera to achieve a powerful and singular record. More than a testimony of a violent act, the two-part program is a reflection on violence. The nuances and subterfuges that our society can offer to a tortuous path towards the recognition of an aggression.
Wood, turned into an involuntary spokesperson for victims of a type of aggression difficult to define at first glance, is a witness and also the protagonist of a terrifying event. From its first minutes, the documentary Phoenix Rising: Rising From The Ashes makes it clear that it will tell a bloody fact. That he will do it from a privileged and detailed vision. Also that the actress holds on her shoulders the strange possibility of being a face that represents many others.
With all of the above building a specific discourse, the documentary is an arduous journey through violence. The one Wood suffered as a child in a greedy Hollywood. The one she suffered when she became a young woman under the spotlight of fame. From the grown woman fighting laws that could benefit offenders in painful ways. All under the correct direction of Amy Berg, who immediately makes it clear that this is not a tabloid document. Nor one built for controversy. In reality, the documentary talks about abuse as part of a culture that supports and normalizes it. The most shocking point of the argument.
A star in the making and a very young victim
During her adolescence and early youth, actress Evan Rachel Wood became the favorite Lolita of several directors in the Hollywood industry. She is also a symbol of rebellion, beauty and a kind of stereotype about unbridled youth that made her a confusing symbol.
As an adult, Wood looks to the past to understand that long and harrowing journey. She does it in front of the cameras and under the weight of becoming one voice among many to narrate an event that is repeated with distressing frequency. One of the most agonizing points of Phoenix Rising: Rising From The Ashes it is his exploration of show business as an arena for sexual violence. Wood, who looks at the camera with a serene aplombexplains with distressing candor how from a very young age she was exploited.
first in Thirteen by Catherine Hardwicke, in which she showed the face of a new generation of actresses who seemed outside the usual parameters. Wood, barely fourteen years old, played a character with severe problems with drugs, sex and alcohol. After in Clippings from my life in which he practically embodied an identical character. On down in the valley, Wood already embodied the myth of the troubled and sexually attractive adolescent. For the actress, who remembers the time when Phoenix Rising: Rising From The Ashes It was an “overwhelming” path. A time that convinced her “she was an adult, even though she wasn’t.”
Much of the first chapter of Phoenix Rising: Rising From The Ashes shows that Wood was the favorite actress of a wicked type of role. The image of the adolescent out of control, desirable and sexually accessible became part of the perception about her. It was a trauma on a complicated scale that left Wood without the ability to control her life. Stunned and ultimately emotionally wounded on a deep level, the actress came to a point of confusion about her identity. It was then that she met rock singer Marilyn Manson.
Abuse, maturity and rebirth in Phoenix Rising: Reborn From The Ashes
If something surprises Phoenix Rising: Rising From The Ashes, is the fact that the story of Wood’s abuse is soberly scrutinized. Very far from the sensationalism that the director could have taken advantage of, the documentary emphasizes the environment of violence. In its causes and in the way in which the victim is often crushed by situations that are beyond him. Either an anonymous or a renowned actress. Wood, who became Mason’s muse and fetish, was used as a kinky piece in a major performance. She too, abused and mistreated for years.
The details are shown harshly, but without the touch of sensationalism that could surround it. In fact, Wood limits himself to describing what he experienced and the context that surrounded him. From Manson’s behavior (which he calls exaggerated, ironic and aggressive), to the young woman he was at the time. Wood tries to understand the woman who was. And she does it from painful edges. In one of the most moving moments of the documentary, the actress reads the paragraphs from her diary in which she describes how and when she met Marilyn Manson. She was then an 18-year-old woman, a well-known actress and a “wounded spirit.”
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Of course, it comes down to Wood’s perspective on his story. And while the documentary might make using that single version more complicated, it works to make it believable. Perhaps it is unfortunate that Phoenix Rising: Rising From The Ashes place medium emphasis on the Wood that reborn from the will. In his political activism and in the fact of his decisive impulse in the Phoenix Law in California. What he does emphasize is the fact that this brilliant and well-constructed documentary is not revenge. “It’s not about destroying a man,” says the actress. “It’s an act of power,” she adds.