Presented as one of the favorites for the Palme d’Or at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, Emilia Perez marks the strong return of Jacques Audiard with a cinematic proposal as dense as it is surprising. The film received the Jury Prize for its director, while the Best Actress Award went to its three artists collectively.
This is perhaps the only thing that critics and moviegoers have agreed upon since the official competition began: Emilia Perezmusical comedy produced by Jacques Audiard, was a serious candidate for the Palme d’Or. Indeed, the film with Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez made a major impact on the Croisette during the first half of the Cannes Festival, accumulating a score of 6.8 according to the Palmomètre. Critical sense. With such feedback, The Pathfinder so I should attend one of his visits this week to see if the rumor was true.
Inventive, political and moving, Emilia Perez it is a cinematic object difficult to identify at first. Before the projection, you can hear the noises in the corridors and the respective questions. We’ve obviously heard of it Zoe Saldana and of Selena Gomez, an amazing duo of actresses in Audiard’s cinema. Some whisper that it is a musical comedy about transidentity, others that this mysterious project takes as its scenario that of the Mexican cartels. How can a French director bring all these themes into existence in a single film? Above all, how do you manage to propose a film that works?
It didn’t take long for the system to be put in place. From the first minutes, the filmmaker establishes the frame of his plot. We thus follow Rita (Zoe Saldaña), an overqualified and exploited Mexican lawyer, who will help the leader of a cartel to discreetly retire from business and realize the dream that has always haunted her: to become a woman. To do this, Manitas must make people believe he is dead, renounce his family, and disappear abroad. However, the separation will be more difficult than expected for the one who now goes by the name Emilia Perez.
The dream of the musical
Played by the sublime and magnetic Karla Sofía Gascón, the heroine is one of the main pillars of the film. As powerful as she is touching, the character floods the film with her incandescent sensitivity and an inspiring, almost poetic confidence. Jacques Audiard’s film also multiplies the lyrical impulses, especially thanks to a staging in the form of a musical comedy in which pop and Latin melodies are mixed. In addition to the genre, which brings a good wave of freshness to the official competition, the musical it allows to understand in a different way the narrative themes of the film and to move away from the purely tearful or social drama.
The pop aspect of the musical offers a certain romanticism to the film which, despite the dreaminess of the dancing and singing scenes – which are particularly well orchestrated – testifies to a very strong reality. Emilia Perez it is as bright as it is dark. The imagination that the music invokes confronts the reality of the characters and their Manichaeism.
This process reminds us of our memories, because of its romanticism, but also because of its way of dynamizing the genre, the musical. Romeo and Juliet of Baz Luhrmann (1996). In the dramaturgy of their characters and the audacity of their pop staging, the two directors find, in a certain way, an echo in their work.
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The darkness of Emilia Perez
The fatality that surrounds the protagonists could be another element that connects the two directors. In truth, Emilia Perez it exudes an inescapable darkness regarding the themes the film deals with.
On the one hand, he wants to be eminently political, without hesitation to directly confront the corruption of the Mexican administration, the violence committed by the cartels, or even the ubiquitous femicides in Central America; a subject that is so widespread in current Mexican society. On the other hand, the feature film by Jacques Audiard questions on another scale – more intimate – the dilemma of transidentity, of secrecy, and also of sorority.
These themes are carried with great subtlety throughout the film, but above all, they offer many levels of reading, doing soEmilia Perez a work as rich in content as in form.
Finally, the film would be nothing without its actresses. For his comeback, Jacques Audiard was able to count on a flamboyant trio to deliver this surprising work. Zoe Saldaña finds her best role here, Selena Gomez is of rare tenderness, while Karla Sofía Gascón just oozes the screen. Together, they form an explosive cocktail and carry on their shoulders a committed, melancholic, musical and feminist work. The perfect combination to seduce the president of the jury Greta Gerwig in short.