Director Jacques Audiard argued that critics of his film either misunderstood his film, haven’t viewed it at all, or have ulterior motives for condemning it.
Director Jacques Audiard argued that critiques of his film, “Emilia Perez,” are being made in “bad faith.”
“Emilia Perez,” a Netflix-distributed musical film about a Mexican cartel kingpin faking his own death to live a new life as a transgender woman, has been embroiled in multiple controversies. Numerous headlines have been made about its star, transgender thespian Karla Sofía Gascón, over old social media posts featuring controversial rhetoric about race and religion.
Additionally, the film’s director, Audiard, has reportedly been facing scrutiny for his portrayal of Mexico, which he defended by appealing to artistic license.
Deadline interviewer Mike Fleming Jr. remarked that Audiard has been quoted as “saying that Spanish is a language of modest countries, of developing countries, of the poor and immigrants” and asked the director to clarify what he meant.
Audiard responded that he has made numerous films in languages that were not his native French and that “I’m drawn to things that don’t belong to the domain of my native language, and I happen to enormously love the Spanish language.”
He added when choosing a language film that will have broad, international appeal, “There’s English and there’s Spanish, and Spanish is such a rich language that crosses borders. What’s been said about my statement is actually exactly the opposite of what I think. I worked five years on this film and for it to now be denigrated in this way, it’s really simply too much.”
The interviewer noted that this is merely “part of the criticism coming from Mexico,” and that “some have objected to the depiction of the cartels and their victims.”
“What shocked me is that either people haven’t seen the film properly, or they haven’t seen it at all and are acting in bad faith,” Audiard responded. “The representation of the cartels in the film is thematic. It’s not something that I’m particularly focused on in the film. There’s one scene that deals with it. The real thing that I’m interested in, that I was interested in doing, is that I wanted to make an opera. That demands a strong stylization. Well, that tends to be how opera is to have schematic elements. The psychology can be limited. Opera has psychological limitations.”
He went on to argue that if he wanted to make a realistic work, he would have made a documentary instead.
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“It seems I’m being attacked in the court of realism. Well, I’ve never claimed that I wanted to make a realistic work. If I wanted to make a work that was particularly documented, then I would do a documentary, but then there would be no singing and dancing,” the film director argued. “For example, I read a review where it said that night markets in Mexico City don’t have photocopiers. Well, in night markets in Mexico City, one also doesn’t sing and dance. You have to accept that is part of the magic here. This is an opera, not a criticism of anything about Mexico.”
In the same interview, Audiard addressed the controversy about Gascón’s old social media posts, juxtaposing a creative relationship initially based on trust with how “suddenly you read something that that person has said, things that are absolutely hateful and worthy of being hated, of course that relationship is affected.”
Gascón’s posts had ranged from slamming religions as the “f—ing beliefs of morons that violate human rights,” to referring to George Floyd shortly after his death as a “drug addict swindler.” In that latter post, Gascón appeared to criticize both sides of the debate over Floyd’s death, such as those who “still consider Black people to be monkeys” and those who “consider policemen to be assassins.”
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The Emilia Perez star had recently appeared in a tearful interview with CNN en Español, telling anchor Juan Carlos Arciniegas, “I cannot renounce a nomination either because I have not committed any crime nor have I harmed anyone. I am not a racist, nor am I anything that all these people have taken it upon themselves to try to make others believe that I am.”
Audiard argued that the performer should “take accountability.”
“I’m not getting in touch with her because right now she needs space to reflect and take accountability for her actions,” he said, arguing, Gascón is “really playing the victim. She’s talking about herself as a victim, which is surprising. It’s as if she thought that words don’t hurt.”
