The alarm of nervousness has started for me just an hour before the phone at 72 Donostia. The Film Festival, or the chance or the role it has given me. After breakfast early and seeking accreditation, I approached the Victoria Eugenia Theatre at 9:00 to start the session with the last work of the director Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard. And how about the beginning.
The most musical movie is usually a polarizing genre. There are those who describe them with inexplicable hatred, and there are those who feel them prodigiously. In my case, I don't have much habit of watching the music. It surely has to do with being a man and all that that implies, but it's not a gender I know especially. Emilia Pérez is a musical drama that I found good as a musical, but as a film, even better.
In the story being told, Rita Moro (Zoe Saldana) is an overqualified lawyer who, as explained at the beginning, is able to save a person guilty of the prison sentence. In this way, the person responsible for a drug cartel will contact him to provide him with special work. It is very difficult to think about this film without making any spoilers, because this work that is going to be given to it completely determines the subject of the film; but at least I will try. Please know that the summary I have just made does not come to one tenth of the work, as many areas are working in it. In some moments, perhaps, it is possible to feel that too many ideas get tangled up, but even though they seem unrelated to each other, they form a sleek symbiosis that, thanks to interaction, gives them very interesting perspectives.
The film talks about identity and analyzes this idea from many points of view. Depending on what a person perceives and what needs to be done to change a person? Does gender influence all of this? Is it possible to change what has been done throughout life? As you can see, it's almost impossible to explain how you combine and analyze these questions without telling the argument. However, the film does a very special and very varied analysis of identity and being, and it's really visible.
Finally, I should like to make a brief reference to the musical parts. Some people did not particularly like it, because they did not devote too much to the plot or the feeling that was wanted to be conveyed, but in general I found it very good. A show sometimes very intimate and moving at times. Whether you like the musical ones or not, after seeing Emilia Pérez, you will not be indifferent.
Protagonists of care
Finally, in the evening programme, Dear Tropics has put the golden brooch on what has been put in place. Watching a film with the director Ana Endara Mislov and most of the group members in the second room of the Kursaal has a special charm. The emotion generated by cinema is amplified by listening to the authors talk about the work, as the emotion of the public also reaches the authors and vice versa.
Unlike the morning film, it has been more contemplative and slower. There, Colombian migrant Ana María (Jenny Navarrete) will become the caregiver of Menchi (Paulina García), a wealthy old woman who seeks roles to live in Panama. Through the new relationship between the two, issues such as care, maternity or loneliness, among others, will be analyzed. The beautiful but humble scenery, the dialogues filled with emptiness and the interpretations of the two main actors will make the spectator known in a very subtle way the ideas that were wanted to be conveyed.
The power relations between the characters have been well represented throughout the film. Who will take care of Menchi when the time comes. What role their children play, or rather, their daughter. All of this is clearly explained in the film, but giving the public a space to breathe, with time to reflect and think. And under a social or more general criticism of power relations, the relationship between Menchi and Ana María is also presented in a much more personal and affectionate way. And that is, despite the difference in economic power, both have a lot to contribute. The film talks about different types of loneliness, from the point of view of motherhood, but also in a broader way.
This film is more discreet and slower. Stylish in shape, deep and humble in reflection. It is also appreciated that the day is closed.