Emilia Pérez: Controversy and Creativity

In a few days, Mexico will witness the premiere of Emilia Pérez, a film that has generated much discussion and controversy. Directed by French filmmaker Jacques Audiard, the film has garnered numerous awards in Europe, including a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. Already available on Netflix in the United States, its arrival in Mexico is taking an unusual path, being released weeks later. But why all this commotion?

The controversy begins with the fact that Emilia Pérez tells a story supposedly set in Mexico, although filmed in France, performed by an international cast rather than Mexican actors. The argument for this was the alleged lack of acting talent in Mexico. Spanish and American actors, including actress and singer Selena Gomez, are responsible for portraying characters who speak Spanish, albeit in a very peculiar way, and this has caused discomfort and harsh criticism in some sectors of Mexico. Eugenio Derbez, the renowned actor and comedian, for example, commented that Selena herself doesn't speak Spanish correctly, which didn't go unnoticed by critics. Is that an offense? Let's not forget that Selena's family has Latin roots, even though she grew up in the United States and her Spanish is far from perfect. Her role is that of a Mexican, yes, but one who has lived in the USA.

The hottest topic, however, is the treatment of drug trafficking. Emilia Pérez approaches this dark subject in a completely different way than many would expect: presenting an allegory about it in the tone of a comic melodrama and musical. A hallucinating mix of genres that has made several viewers question whether it's appropriate to treat such a painful topic in Mexico with such a peculiar approach that seemingly strays from reality. Is this a "narco-opera"? Is it trivializing the suffering of those who live under the shadow of organized crime in Mexico? First of all, let's clarify that Emilia Pérez could never be classified as a Mexican film, and Audiard only uses Mexico as mere scenery to tell a complex story in a very particular way.

What's interesting here is that, although the film is criticized for its approach, Emilia Pérez isn't the only production that has touched on the topic of drug trafficking. Think about the popular narco-corridos or Netflix series, where drug traffickers are represented in a much more glamorous and even glorified way. Is it more acceptable to glorify crime than to represent it from a highly artistic perspective, even if it's uncomfortable? Let's not dismiss the opportunity for a creative person to tell us a different story, under perhaps strange context.

And this is where the real question comes in: cinema, in its purest form, is an act of creativity and personal vision, sometimes challenging. Jacques Audiard has taken his version of Mexican reality, with all its nuances, and has boldly decided to imagine a story where a Mexican drug trafficker fakes his death and becomes a woman. The inspiration seems to come from myths like the story of Amado Carrillo, the famous "Lord of the Skies," whose death during plastic surgery left many doubts, fueling all kinds of theories. It's a story that, despite being a transformation thriller, maintains a surrealist air with Bollywood touches and musical numbers. Something that for many will be unexpected and even disconcerting.

Is it so strange that a film with elements supposedly related to Mexico has music? Wasn't it common in the golden days of national cinema for actors like Pedro Infante or Luis Aguilar to intersperse songs in their films, creating an almost dreamlike tone in the midst of their stories? I still remember how surreal it seemed to me as a child to see Pedro Infante playing the guitar while mariachi trumpets sounded with no musicians nearby, without any logical sense in the scene. However, that style was always part of what defined an era of Mexican cinema.

Perhaps that's why it surprises us so much today that a foreign film, instead of replicating the conventions we know, dares to mix such diverse genres and styles. This is the type of auteur cinema that many consider "strange," "bizarre," or even "unnecessary." But in the end, it's just a director's vision. And even if we don't like it, shouldn't we respect that vision?

I think, for example, of Robert Rodriguez's works, who broke schemas with El Mariachi, where Antonio Banderas, an actor with a marked Spanish accent, played a Mexican... speaking English? Or in From Dusk Till Dawn, where the actors cross the border between Mexico and the United States, arriving at a bar that's a vampire nest... and incidentally, an Aztec pyramid. It wasn't about making an exact portrait of reality, but about telling a story through the unique gaze of the author. Let's leave it to Mel Gibson or Robert Eggers to make films obsessively adhering to historical details.

The film Emilia Pérez is no different. Jacques Audiard, like other renowned filmmakers, is playing with cinema as a blank canvas. Sometimes, it's necessary to take risks. Art shouldn't be an exact reflection of reality; rather, it's a way of giving shape to what we can't see with our eyes, but feel with our hearts.

And, let's be honest: how many of us have enjoyed movies like Joker 2 or even La La Land, which also incorporate the unexpected element of music in genres that don't usually have it? Why then does it seem so shocking to see Selena Gomez or actress Zoe Saldana singing in a film about drug trafficking and forced disappearances?

Once again, the key lies in creativity, in the freedom to tell stories without restrictions. If Mexican cinema or television has the freedom to create narco-series that glorify characters like El Chapo, why not let a foreign director imagine a world where drug trafficking transforms into something completely different, through music, drama, and comedy? This is cinema that challenges norms, that doesn't conform to what we expect, but has the ability to open our minds.

In fact, Emilia Pérez reminds me of the artistic liberties of some films by the recently deceased David Lynch, who also used to mix the surreal with the real, the dark with the absurd. Just as in Hedwig, a musical that plays with gender transition, cinema has the power to make us question our reality. A director's magic lies in how they take us from the ordinary to the unimaginable. Perhaps the legendary Rainer Werner Fassbinder or Lars Von Trier would have liked to make a film like Emilia Pérez. A part of the film could definitely fit within the universe of someone like the great Pedro Almodóvar.

So, should we attack or ignore a film just because it doesn't conform to our preconceived idea of what it should be? Or better yet, why not approach Emilia Pérez with an open mind, ready to see something truly different, something that might leave us reflecting long after the cinema lights go down? Are we really willing to witness something shocking and different?