Aspects such as its writers, plot, and composition suggest that “Emilia Pérez” is a Mexican film, but in all honesty, it isn’t. Now this is the most obvious conclusion that one can draw, seeing that it is crossed to procure context from Mexico. The combination of descriptors that are used to define the most appealing character of the movie is ‘emotional cross-border trespasser.’ This is a rather vivid and eclectic use of language to portray a character. I must say the words used in the movie songs are utterly beyond perplexing, to put it the movie is a syrupy concoction with rhapsodic elements, and on occasion, it tends to be potent and dramatic, at times it can be quite heartfelt as well.
A socio-drama with gripping elements of Narco, this movie comes from Jacque Audiard who happens to be French. One would expect this to be the Mexican newcomer’s introduction to the movie scene and country, but unfortunately, the movie was filmed in Paris where the reality of Mexico was artificially created. Now even the source of the movie can be termed as different considering it the an excerpt from Boris Razon’s book titled Écoute. With all the influences and concoctions stitched together, one can only think of the movie as a curative melodrama and the movie hosts no ties to Mexico and its culture logging the storyline.
Perhaps that applied distance is what permits “Emilia Pérez” to dwell messily without restriction.
Nevertheless, there are quite a few elements that Audiard incorporates within his emotionally charged frames which, if nothing else, suggest an attempt of sorts at being somewhat truthful at least as much as his outsider’s perspective and artistic desires allow. A television displays images of women marching and protesting against femicide in Mexico City. The sensationalist newspapers typical to a Mexican newsstand adorned with grotesque images of heinous acts on the cover as well as the loudspeaker that is blaring from a scrap metal collection van adds to the reproduction of this set. The interplay of the movie’s overwhelming artifice alongside the filmmaker’s genuine intent, is fascinating. The movie’s endeavor to explore the realms of truth regarding self-preservation and redemption remains strong.
The individual who inspired the titular character of this film is none other than Karla Sofía Gascón, a Spanish transgender actress who gained prominence in Mexican films and television soap operas before her transition.
Most importantly, Gascón acted as the male villain in one of Mexico’s largest local productions in terms of box-office returns, 2013’s “Nosotros los Nobles” (“We Are the Nobles”). Now, though, Gascón does an impressive degree of acting gymnastics portraying two roles: Manitas Del Monte, a powerful drug lord who has gender dysphoria, and Emilia Pérez, a philanthropist who runs an NGO that assists families in locating their missing relatives.
This new character shows her desire for atonement as the reason for many of those losses. She seeks to become the paladin who abuses her. Her desire to evade her long-held sins did not die with her burying of that person she struggles to remember. Their abuse of power at any cost is a lynchpin as much as their need is. Emilia’s true self is a conundrum, especially considering the way she will lash out with her strength to get the compassion and boundless source of love she has always wanted. Being ruthless is not confined to masculinity.
Manitas engages Rita (Zoe Saldaña), a hope lawyer disgusted by men whom she knows are stars against women, while attempting to cater to the logistical details of her man’s transition. Rather, this job specification does not prevent her from accepting a range of powerful roles that pay well lots of money on the other side of the fence. The task also involves relocating Manita’s wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and her two kids to Switzerland.
The ballets become integral numbers but mostly composed by Saldaña with the use of her voice combined with choreographed dancing with some other scenes usually set in the world of the musically dramatized sequences as if the impressive world was absorbed into a puzzling storm more intense than any other world one could dream.
In spite of the overtly dramatic cinematics of these tracks, some of the written lines serve as building blocks for the words by Audiard and Paul Guilhaume since they get the balance between perfectness and absolute uncontrollable movement in the performs, sometimes to symmetrical aspects and others to not so. At their best they can be mesmerizing, at their most familiar they can be familiar.
There’s a loud yearning in Manita’s gentle operatic plea aiming at soft-heartedness in front of Rita who wishes to have multiple operations but also aches for his presence but such is unfathomable in an overtly masculine interface. Saldaña retains her role of monopoly in a heterodox rendition but she does not even pay lip service to the artificiality enshrined in the format. What can best be called her performance, hinges on the kinds of facial gestures that convey guilt over what she did and the little Rita who remembers Emilia’s past.
Next, let’s delve into Audiard’s film, Emilia Perez. The first and most pressing issue is none of the three lead actresses speak with a Mexican accent. There is one surprising element I would in fact applaud, and that is the use of language especially for an American production. They may not be fluent in Spanish, but Audiard certainly speaks colloquial Spanish. Jessi and Rita both reveal a bit about their lives. Rita evangelizes about the Dominican Republic, and Jessi mentions a sister who lives in the States, which likely means she is Mexican-American. It would be inappropriate to claim that Saldaña’s or Gomez’s characters are women from Mexico, because, as has been said before, Audiard does not seem bothered if the girl is a Dominican or a Mexican. Then casting this time becomes yet another queue in the line of this elegant mixture.
Emilia’s new love interest, Epifania who is on the hunt for a lost member of her family, is the only other person along with Adriana Paz, a Mexican performer, who bears blood on her hands. In the Emilia Perez movie, there are actors such as Fernanda Valadez, and Astrid Rondero, which I kinda did not expect in this Mexican production. And while I don’t want to frighten anyone with ‘Mexican imagination’, think Identifying Features and Sujo here. The consequences of violence in realistic dramas are what I understand too well how it would create fresh victims, so tangentially wondering about ‘Mexican imagination’ is where such narrative work can be assisted and understood.
This disconnect Mexican viewers seem to cross, along with American viewers demonizing the perception of naive helplessness by dramatizing narcos everywhere seem to enjoy, Seth Hodson and Carlos Sutherland are the types of individuals they have become used to in a believe-narrative industry. Questioning the motive of claims from any narrative will never be as important as it will into the presumptions that any work from Audiard would make complaints towards familiar outreach still seek.
Certainly, the grossing of “Emilia Pérez” is large owing to its Hollywood Director and Netflix as its distributor, but the growth potential of Mexican independent art-house cinemas is comparatively larger when seeking growth avenues. But in a way, the former represents a conundrum in itself; why are Adrien Brody’s needless takes on the chaos of Mexico more endorsed than the Mexicans’ idiosyncrasies? Along with the extreme aesthetics and irrelevant themes, it’s more than just visually captivating, it’s visually intoxicating, and that harmony is what makes “Emilia Perez” irresistible. But like synthetic flavoring extracts, there is no real fruit in them, but the feelings they provoke, positive and negative alike, are true.
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