Emilia Pérez
Jacques Audiard, France, 2024o
A young Mexican lawyer becomes the right-hand woman of a cartel boss who is planning to get out of the drug business and wants to cleanse himself of his past by becoming a woman and a helper of victims of violence. The operation succeeds, but the environment and ingrained reflexes prove to be the real traps in the new life as a woman.
Throughout his career, Frenchman Jacques Audiard (Un prophète, Les Olympiades) has demonstrated a rare flair for burning social issues: the question of the penal system, the problems of immigration, the new gender issues. Another example is this lyrical opera about the gender transition of a Mexican cartel boss, which won three awards at Cannes and two at the Oscars. The success is obvious, the excellent cast, the beauty of the choreography and the richness of the staging were rightly praised. Moreover, all the ingredients are there for a great, emancipatory film about the transsexual cause. However, it would be wrong to limit Audiard to the role of social director. The question of violence and redemption runs through the thematic diversity of his cinema. The gangster Manitas, trapped in a gender identity that drives him to brutality, realizes his dream of becoming a woman with the help of a lawyer who is disgusted by the cynicism of her milieu. In his new identity as Emilia Perez, the protagonist tries to make amends for his crimes by founding an NGO that helps the families of victims of violence. Therein lies the beauty of Audiard's work: he gives his two-faced victim and perpetrator characters the chance to tear themselves away from evil. Salvation is within reach, but so is the possible fall, the tragedy. His films breathe the zeitgeist and are universal at the same time.
Émilien Gür