Mexico city – The film “Emilia Pérez” has finally reached the big screen in Mexico City for the main culture for the genre bending musical about Narco-Violence and transgender culture, which just received 13 Oscar nominations, including the best picture.
At best, the reception was frosty.
At his opening last weekend, Jacques Audiard's Melodrama made a Spanish -speaking, French -speaking Melodrama in eighth place in Mexican income from health insurersFar behind other less celebrated Oscar hopefuls such as “complaves”, a Vatican secret and “Flow”, an animated feature from Latvia.
And almost empty screening rooms in the past few days indicate that the number of spectators in the middle of a mostly enemy-wenn not even incredible difficulty.
The actor Adriana Paz speaks at a press conference to promote the film “Emilia Pérez” on January 15, 2025 in Mexico city.
(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)
“Waste of time,” said Areli Vázquez, 24, a psychology student who left a multiplex on one evening. “In the end you have no clear message about it NarcoS, about the trans problem, about the disappearance…. Just a superficial look at all of these affairs. “
Carmela Espinoza, 67, added a retired primary school teacher: “It was offensive and made fun of Mexicans.”
Finding people who didn't hated the film was not easy, but there were some, like Omar Robles (42), whose curiosity was awakened by the social media firestorm that were led to the film.
“I didn't really like the film, but I don't think it was as bad as you say,” said Robles, an Uber driver. “It shows Mexico's reality. And we don't like people when people talk badly about us. But the film is not lying. Everything it shows, happens, and sometimes it's worse. I would recommend it. “
The film tells the story of a brutal drug king, Manitas del Monte, who decides to falsify his own death for reasons that remain dark and to undergo a procedure for sexual change. He appears as an Emilia Pérez, a philanthropine who brings her illegal fortune into a charity to help people find relatives who have “disappeared” in the antitrust power.
Audihard, the French director of the film, said that he had coordinated a poor cinematic experience.
“You are in a Narco film and then, bam, you are in a telenovela”, he ” Told VarietyComparison of the film and its idiosyncratic song and dance sequences with an opera. “I wanted this floating thing,” added Audiard, who received an Oscar nomination for the direction.
The film creates some of the greatest scenes in Mexicos: Desperate women who spend pictures of missing relatives, people who sit by searching for remains, and armed men who lead hooded prisoners are probably never seen again.
Nevertheless, some of the top pushback from Mexico's “collective”, basic volunteers and, sovereign, comes from women who have disappeared after more than 100,000 and often risk their lives. In the film, antitrust gangsters seem to give the searchers instructions where they find secret graves.
The director Jacques Audiard has his film “Emilia Perez” in Mexico city during a press conference on January 15, 2025 in Mexico city.
(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)
“The Narcos Never give us information about how we can find our relatives, ”said Virginia Garay Cazares, 53, whose son, a hot dog seller, was 19 years old when he disappeared in 2018.“ And nobody gives us money to too help. We pay for everything ourselves. “
“It's okay with us if the director of this film wants to become famous,” said Garay, who heads a collective. “But why didn't he come and talk to us? Then he could have presented the reality as it is. Not as if he can imagine it. “
In accordance with the members of the Academy of the Arts and Sciences that the Oscar candidates choose, reviewers in the USA and Europe have in general “Emilia Pérez”.
“A lawyer, a kingpin and his wife enter a musical, and 'Emilia Pérez' is born,” wrote reviewer Robert Abele in the Times and described the film as “full -bodied, colorful epic about transformation, redemption and finding the voice in one hard world. ”
Most of these positive reviews appeared a critical mass in front of the current of the objections from Mexico.
According to many in Mexico, “Emilia Pérez” acted in distortion and stereotypes. The critics say that the metamorphosis of the gang guide contradicts reality and that the friendly, good age person of Emilia Pérez mocks the victims who suffered during their former malicious reign.
The film “Always keeps an unplausible tone, colorful, neon, with a Mexico that is more background than substance”. columnist Alejandro Alemán recently wrote in the newspaper El Universal.
The Mexican filmmaker Camila Aurora has released a short parody on “Emilia Pérez”, which mocked all things French, from baguettes and baskets to wine and thin mustache. The parody “Johanne Sacreblu“As of January 31, more than 2 million views on YouTube.
Some here argue that the outrage about the film reflects a collective feeling of rejection of how much violence the structure of Mexican society has torn.
“Ask yourself: Why does a film make a larger scandal than the reality he tries to present?” The columnist Pascal Beltrán del Río wrote in Mexico newspaper in Mexico.
Critics also find that none of the three main actors are Mexican. A Spaniard, Karla Sofía Gascón, orders the title role, while the actresses Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña, born in the USA, also command the leading role.
Saldaña was nominated for an Oscar as a supporting actress, while Gascón received a nod as the main actress and the first open transgender actor who was honored was honored.
This did not prevent the contempt for the LGBTQ+ community in Mexico and elsewhere. Glaad, the Advocacy Group, explained that “Emilia Pérez” “represented a deeply retrograde representation of a trans woman”.
The actress Adriana Paz interacts with fans at an event with the red carpet to promote the film “Emilia Pérez” on January 15, 2025 in Mexico City.
(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)
The narrowing of the controversy was the sudden repetition of several old social media contributions from Gascón, which expressed fire views about Muslims, George Floyd and diversity. In an explanation this week by Netflix, which sells the film, the actor said that she was “deeply sorry for those I caused pain.” She later deactivated her X account.
Although the film was made in France, not in Mexico, it has some authentic details: the film begins with the complaining, absorbed appeals of a young girl who addresses old devices and other scrap places. The high plea actually beats in the capital every day because the recyclers make their rounds in pickups with trash.
But long -standing residents of Mexico city indicate incongrisions: the prevalence of palm trees, mis -designated or non -existent institutions, a court scene with a jury, although there are no legal proceedings for criminal jury.
“Pure Opportunism,” Castle Jorge VolpiA Mexican essayist who writes in the Spanish newspaper El País. “Originality that emerges from unsuccessful and superficial impulse.”
The cascading criticism from Mexico may have a certain effect. Shortly before the publication here by “Emilia Pérez”, the director apologized.
“If there are things that appear scandalous for Mexicans in 'Emilia,” then I'm sorry, “Audiard said to CNN Español. “The cinema does not provide any answers, it only asks questions. But maybe the questions in 'Emilia Pérez' are wrong. “
Nevertheless, the march continues to the Oscars.
Sánchez Vidal is a special correspondent.