Emilia Pérez: Movie Musical or Musical Mayhem?
Emilia Pérez, branded as a Spanish crime musical, with hints of “comedy” and French influences left me as confused as one can be when reading all of those adjectives put together. Directed by Jacques Audiard, the film tells the story of a cartel drug chief with a lifelong history of bad decisions under his belt and the outward hope for a new beginning. Karla Sofía Gascón plays Juan “Manitas” Del Monte, a Mexican drug dealer who fakes his own death as he decidedly transitions into the titular role of Emilia Pérez, a seemingly redemptive heroine who starts a new life (as a transgender woman). To this day, I’m not quite sure why Emilia transitioned in the first place – was it an honest effort to live her true self or a selfish attempt at redemption? Throughout the course of a seemingly weak and unclear plotline, Emilia Pérez takes us through two hours of poor translations, bad Spanish, inauthentic vocal executions, and a generally incohesive blend of artistic choices (the first one being: its unclear need to also be a musical).
Musical Madness
To start off, let us talk about the elephant in the room: why is this movie a musical? When it comes to musical theater or movie musicals in general, there is usually a defining moment that justifies the need to burst out into song and dance. Oftentimes, we rely on one or multiple conventions that are typically seen in the structure of musical theater. This can be anything from an opening number that establishes characters and their relationship to each other, an “I am” or “I want” song that establishes character objectives or generally speaking, songs and lyrics that support the rising and falling action of its narrative (which Emilia Perez significantly failed to do). The movie’s songs fall flat and their accompanying lyrics even flatter, oftentimes blurring the lines between randomness and mockery.
We see this in many instances, one of them being the film’s opening number “El Alagato.” In the course of this song, Rita Mora Castro, a Mexican lawyer played by Zoe Saldaña prepares herself for the court trial of a case she’s working on. Through inner dialogue and commentary, we get a better sense of Rita’s frustration surrounding this event. While lyrically and emotionally executed cues give us an implied understanding of her vocational unhappiness, the song itself primarily focuses on one contributing moment of her career as opposed to her long-term discontent. As a viewer, this created a sense of ambiguity – it almost felt like the movie would be about this court case instead of what the movie is actually about.
Another instance where we see this is in the number “La Vaginoplastia,” where Zoe Saldaña’s character enquires about gender affirmation surgery for her client Juan “Manitas” Del Monte. The lyrics explicitly mention the basic functions of the procedure, with infamous lines like “Man to woman. From penis to vagina.” These lyrics and overly animated number blur the line between banal and straight up mockery.
Prior to this moment, Emilia Pérez seemed to take on a particular stylistic approach, one that closely mirrors film-noir, with dark tones and a generally dim cinematic aesthetic. This song (like most of the songs in this movie) completely stray away from these original artistic choices, as they feel random and incohesive to the serious nature of the film’s apparent genre, style and underlying message.
Another aspect of this musical debacle is the music itself. Now I’m not an expert when it comes to musical composition, but I will say this: I know what I like when I hear it... and I didn’t like what I heard in this film. The musical composition of the songs in Emilia Perez frankly sounded the same. Every single one of them. We already covered the lyrics themselves. Now when it comes to music and melody... that seemingly failed too. All of the songs sounded alike, creating no contrast or juxtaposition in its storytelling. While I acknowledge that musicals don’t always need to feel traditional, I will say that cohesiveness is necessary regardless of how traditional or non-traditional your musical is. Cohesiveness can be found throughout: in the lyrics and in the rhythm of a song, among other places. As an audience, we might get excited when a heightened sound comes through. Likewise, we might feel saddened when a melody drops. This creates an ebb and flow, typically supportive and reflective of the ebb and flow found in the arch of a narrative. Emilia Perez’s musical monotony contributed to an incohesive blend of artistic choices, failing in its entirety to do what a musical is meant to do.
A Linguistic Debacle
For a movie that is set in Mexico, with a predominantly Spanish speaking cast, the Spanish itself was subpar. There are many attributing factors to this foreign debacle, the first and most important one being the director himself. Jacques Audiard, a French filmmaker with no knowledge of the Spanish (or English) language took on a Spanish-speaking project about an issue that is prevalent in a Spanish-speaking community. This proved to be the root of so many issues surrounding language and dialogue in Emilia Pérez, particularly those pertaining to tonal fluency, inconsistent dialects and direct translations (which were partially inaccurate and generally bizarre).
In multiple interviews, Audiard has outwardly admitted to an intentional lack of effort in learning the dominant language that exists in his films, including this one. Below is an excerpt from a W Magazine interview, written by Lynn Hirschberg:
“Very few of your films have been in French, your native language. Did you learn Spanish for Emilia Pérez?”
“[Laughs] No! I don’t speak Spanish. I don’t speak Tamil [Dheepan] or Arabic [A Prophet]. For me, there’s a music to language. The rhythm, the sound—it becomes very musical. Not knowing the language gives me a quality of detachment. When I’ve directed in my own language, I get stuck on the details. I focus too strongly on the accent, the punctuation, rather than the
emotion.”
So, you’re telling me that a film director, whose sole purpose is to direct and uphold the artistic integrity of a film, carried out an entire project without actually understanding linguistically how his screenplay was verbally executed? Interesting.
Let’s say, for example, I was directing an English-speaking film without understanding a word of the English language. Under these pretenses, I’d have no way of knowing how qualified a translator (or a dialect coach) could possibly be if I can’t assess their work to begin with. It’s like interviewing a doctor without being a medical professional myself. Who am I to judge? How am I possibly supposed to know what qualifies as a decently executed Appendectomy if I’ve never sutured a patient myself? In respect to the movie, how can I know if my film is being written, translated or spoken correctly, if I don’t speak that language myself?
It baffles me to think that his justification for this, is by saying that a particular detachment to language is synonymous to musical rhythm. This is in fact NOT true. As a matter of fact, there was no rhythm in this film, particularly when it came to those who spoke Spanish. The Spanish in this movie felt broken, inarticulate, dialectally incohesive and brutally reflective of non-fluent Spanish speakers. For those of us who have a dominant understanding of what was being said (or what was badly being said), we can attest that Audiard’s commentary is just a coward excuse from a subpar director who refuses to do the work and acknowledge the cultural backbone of the projects he superficially takes on.
For a film that takes place in Mexico, the dialects in particular were all over the place. If an actor by chance did speak correct Spanish, their accent was not reflective of the regional dialect they were supposed to be representing. Again, this is largely due to the fact that our director here, has no knowledge of the language, let alone regional dialects pertaining to varying Spanish communities. As a result, he is unable to correctly guide his actors and creative team, failing brutally in executing a cohesive sounding ensemble; an important task for anyone directing a foreign film.
Some actors, on the other hand, couldn’t speak Spanish at all. Suddenly the issue wasn’t just about their dialect but also about fluency. A prime example is Selena Gomez. Her lack of fluency destructively hindered her performance as Jessi, Del Monte’s wife. Her amateur and oftentimes incorrect pronunciation was that of someone in a beginner Spanish class while her tonal execution sounded like that of someone in an Ancient Rome war film; two elements that contributed to an astronomically incohesive performance. Point blank, it sounded like a different language altogether. It sounded like an actor who didn’t know what she was saying and typically speaking, when we don’t know what we’re saying, our accompanying emotions don’t either. It was an obvious disconnect and those who are familiar with the language can attest to Gomez’s inauthenticity and generally bizarre contributions to the portrayal of this character (both vocally and emotionally).
A Final Take
To call this movie a musical is disrespectful to musicals. To call it a foreign film, is disrespectful to a Spanish-speaking community at large.
Jacques Audiard’s work proved to be a cinematic disaster, a linguistic abomination and simply put, an intricate drawing with far too many colors painted outside its lines. In an effort to add quantities of cinematic elements, Audiard stretched himself too thin, sacrificing the quality of the film’s overarching message which in my opinion, had potential to begin with, if done correctly.
Emilia Pérez is a misrepresentation of musical theater. A messy construction of what a theatrical experience should be. A collection of genuinely bizarre moments, to say the least.
That’s my take.
What’s yours?
