Rita's a lawyer for a big firm. Tired of whitening craps for otherwise degrading wages, Rita meets one of Mexico's greatest cartel leaders. Manitas decided to withdraw from business and wants to become the woman he has always dreamed of being. Audiard delivers a rock musical with panache while deconstructing our representations of the painful physical and psychic journey involved in a sexual transition.
To and against all
If we had been told that Audiard's next movie would be a musical, we would probably have believed in a joke. French cinematographer customary of the cruise since the excellent A Prophet or Deepan who had received the Palme d'or in Cannes, is the director about to make a double? With such a perilous synopsis, one might have thought that Audiard was walking on eggs with Emilia Perez : a drug baron who wants to change sex against winds and tides and decides to blend into anonymity after her transition to reconnect with her family by pretending to be a distant aunt... it's a baroque proposition!
And yet, past the acceptance of such an unlikely starting point, Emilia Perez does more than transform the test. The last Audiard, carried by a play of bright actors, constantly surprises. First of all, by its staging where musical flights are very well integrated into the image. Transitions are flexible and natural between quotation marks. Even if you are not customary musicals, a genre that was widely democratized by the Americans, you should enjoy the experience. First of all because Audiard robs the camera on these characters by not hesitating to turn off the lights around. Less kitsch than one might imagine, some musical passages act as confidences and intimate dialogues present fragile characters that highlight their weaknesses. Never ass-ass for that, Emilia Perez bare internal tears on an identity in (de/re)construction.
Reset
The character of Rita, camped by Zoe Saldana, offers us powerful choreographies, curious marriage between dance and incisive requisite. As for the transsexual actress Karla Sofía Gascón, these interventions accurately and sensitively show the moments of life of her painful transition. Behind deliverance is also hidden many internal divisions where Manitas, now Emilia Perez, is never completely complete, all the more so with his organized disappearance from the world of cartels.
How to combine family life and new genre by pretending to be another? Emilia Perez offers a second life, an opportunity for redemption by erasing her old identity and by the same token of horrors involved in the life of a narco. However, Audiard is not candid and he also exposes pain and pain. « Golden prison » In which Manitas locked up his wife Jessi played by a Selena Gomez full of frustrations, therefore desires.
« Changing bodies is changing society » scande Rita during a singing argument to convince the doctor to operate Manitas. And that's where Audiard's project finds a sincere resonance by recording the transition as a political act. At the start of a crackle, Audiard manages to convince the spectator that a narco has a perfect right to change sex! And this is all Emilia Perez's interest, showing that you can be yourself and someone else without denying yourself. The attracted genre has no reason to be, except to lock up the possibilities, where only the will should prevail.
It's also the meaning to give scenes where Rita squanders without shadows the ambivalence of the bourgeois gratin who claims his goodness while being perfect criminals, the white collars in addition. This double game, more or less tacit, is perfectly tolerated by society, yet so propitious to dictate the choices of each other.
We already flounder the accusations of wokism to come if Emilia Perez He had to pick up the Golden Palm. Whatever the term woke There is no conceptual reality, this moral panic rooted like cancer, as evidenced by the worrying progress of attacks on trans and homosexual people. The extreme right now has a gable on the street in our media to vomit her hatred. Emilia Perez is an original film that gives the voice to transgender people, made so rare in cinema. A choice challenger for the Golden Palm even if other films like Anora Could very well push the Croisette.
TrailerEmilia Perez
[...] But in spite of the appearances, Anora does not lack a punch to defend herself, on the contrary. The young woman has her tongue hanged well and does not hesitate to retaliate or retaliate those who put themselves in the way. And when the film derails towards the disaster operation to repair the broken pots, Sean Baker delights us with fiery situations while leaving room, in contrast, for sensitive scenes where the fairy tale collapses. Even if Anora does not lack a reply, it is above all through her body that she expresses herself. A facade that we know only too well and that finds all its symbolism during its magnificent epilogue. By marrying the records with intelligence, Anora is a pleasure of every moment and a pomegranate that we expect to explode at any time. Without hesitating one of the most beautiful works in competition on the cruise, Anora is a serious candidate to take the golden palm to Emilia Perez (read our review). [...]
[...] With Emilia Perez, awarded both the jury's grand prize and the women's interpretation prize, Audiard directly questioned the genres by the delicate question of the sexual transition against the backdrop of Mexican cartels. A bold and political project as already evidenced by the waves of transphobic indignation seen on the lamentable comments of the media Cnews. And even on the red carpet, the question of inclusion became immiscuous with the rise of revolting steps for the team of the movie One more thing. In front of the world, director Arthus had to wear Sofian Ribes, one of his disabled actors in lack of accessibility, a climax or rather a shame for the biggest film festival in the world. With Brice, we return to this 77th edition with several and highly political proposals. Good listening and do not hesitate to ask us your questions and share your favorites and disappointments in comments! [...]