Praised in Hollywood, but rejected in Mexico. Emilia PerezJacques Audiard's film about a transgender Mexican drug trafficker, seduces the movie-loving world, but not the country that inspired it, which criticizes it for lightly appropriating the tragedies of narco-violence.
THURSDAY 23 January, the musical made history with 13 Oscar nominations, record for a work not English-speaking. And will finally know the public's verdict in Mexico with its theatrical release, after months of violent indictments.
“Emilia Pérez is everything bad in a film: stereotypes, ignorance, lack of respect, exploitation of one of the most serious humanitarian crises in the world (the mass disappearances in Mexico). Hurtful. Frivolous”summarized on X Cecilia Gonzalez, who presents herself as a Mexican journalist in Argentina (47 000 subscribers).
The Stations of the CrossEmilia Perez on his lands began at the end of October at the Morelia Festival (north-west) during a screening in the presence of Audiard and the actresses awarded the Best Actress Prize at Cannes, Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz. Little impressed, the public applauded with their fingertips the story of the bloodthirsty narco who helps the victims of the cartels including the relatives of the disappeared once they become women.
Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, also very popular in Hollywood (Barbie of Greta Gerwig, Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese), was the first to shoot against the film shot in the studio in Paris, apart from a few night exteriors in Mexico. Apart from the presence in the casting of the Mexican Adriana Paz, “everything seems inauthentic”he summarized for the specialized magazine Deadline. “Especially when the subject is so important to us Mexicans”he added, referring to the approximately 30,000 annual homicides and 100,000 disappearances linked largely to narco-violence.
“I have nothing against non-Mexicans making films in Mexico, but the details are important. Take the case of Ang Lee. He is from Taiwan and he made Brokeback Mountain (romance between two cowboys). But he focuses on the details.”concluded Prieto, who defended his own film (Pedro Paramofor Netflix) in Morelia.
“The film trivializes the problem of the missing in Mexico”protests Artemisa Belmonte, author of a petition on change.org to oppose its theatrical release (11,000 signatures since January 9). Emilia Perez East “one of the crudest and most misleading films of the 21st century”the writer Jorge Volpi hit the nail on the head in The Country.
-Let's reverse the roles, he quips: what would the profession have said if an Oscar-winning Mexican director (Cuaron, Inarritu or Del Toro) had shot a fiction on the problems of the suburbs in France, but in a studio in Mexico, with actors from Hollywood, speaking with an Argentinian or Colombian accent? “It would have been a simple joke received with bursts of laughter.” “Emilia Perez embodies all the clumsy prejudices towards gender transitions”adds Volpi, nevertheless saluting “the meticulous work” of the Spanish transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón.
Another controversy: the bad Spanish of the American of Mexican origin Selena Gomez. His performance was qualified “indefensible” by Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez. “I’m sorry, I did the best I could.”Selena Gomez defended herself on TikTok. Derbez apologized flatly.
Audiard himself began his mea-culpa during a recent presentation in Mexico: “If things seem shocking in Emilia, I would be ready to apologize”. “At the start, it’s an opera, and an opera is not very realistic”he defends himself. “Selena (Gomez) and Zoe (Saldaña) brought a commercial dimension”he justified himself in response to a question from AFP in Bogota about the few Mexicans in the casting (another recurring criticism).
Faced with attacks, Emilia ended up finding some defenders in Mexico. “I don't think Gene Kelly went to Paris to An American in Paris“launched Mexican director Guillermo del Toro during a discussion with Audiard.
“If the great masters of auteur cinema like Federico Fellini or Luis Buñuel were alive, this is the kind of film they would make”according to a columnist from MillenniumAlvaro Cueva, affirming that Bunuel had also been crushed in 1950 for The Forgotten (chronicle of the slums of Mexico).
Also interviewed by MillenniumAngie Orozco, from a collective of relatives of the missing, hoped Wednesday that “all the noise” around the film allows for better “see this crisis” of the missing. A return to harsh reality.
