I was able to see #EmiliaPerez, its a movie directed by Jacques Audiard and stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoé Saldaña and Selena Gómez.
It follows the life of a lawyer who must face a tough decision when the leader of a drug cartel in Mexico offers her something she cannot refuse.
Emilia Pérez is the movie that will make any people from Mexico, angry. Why?
The movie contains one of the most despicable representations of the country, as well is a movie that was set in Mexico City, but not filmed there; but deals a story about a Mexican drug cartel and the repercussions of their actions, and on top of that, it’s a musical.
Its a fable that comes through the mind of a French director who didn’t do a proper research about the country, didn’t film in Mexico and the movie dares to jump his leap of faith with a story about a transgender woman who was the leading man of a drug cartel.
The script does not offer much. The clunky dialogue, the transition for scene to scene and the musical numbers are ridiculous and even some of the decisions to shoot in that aspect it’s left to be desired.
The director was looking for diversity and representation in this story, the movie didn’t offer any of that. This was like a inconsistent attempt to do something that you don’t know nothing about. It’s like doing a movie about Hitler, but instead of Germany, you shoot in Venezuela.
Aside from that, the performances are one of the most outstanding aspects, highlighting Karla Sofía Gascón and Zoé Saldaña. The choreography in some of the musical numbers are great and the art direction of this movies is one of the few things that you can say positive things about it.
The story doesn’t make sense in general terms, the decision of the characters are dumb enough to question if Tommy Wiseau did a rewrite on the script.
Emilia Perez broke the boundaries of the art in a way that we can explore how bad it turn out and how the people needs to see this one to comprehend the chaos surrounding this movie.
The big thing about international films is like movies like Queer, or movies that has like a co production with Mexican crew, it’s often the right thing to do. When you attempt to do something out of the box, having a French movie entirely but Latin actors, spoken in Spanish and setting your whole story around a Mexican drug cartel and in Mexico City, is something alarming, when you don’t have at least any support, any distribution or even having diversity among your crew.
The art failed here and it’s on us.
Even if you are from another country, you will feel the same issue about this whole colossal mess. At least; they didn’t put the yellow filter this time.
It releases in Canada and Mexico on January 2025 and is already streaming in USA on Netflix.
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