Meza adds that in her opinion, the movie is one that’s “designed for export”. “If you go to resorts in Mexico, tourists can buy things that look Mexican, but they’re made elsewhere,” she says. “With this movie, you might see references to Mexican culture, and it might speak about Mexico, but it wasn’t made in Mexico.”
The film-maker’s defence
However, amid the flurry of criticism, some accusations about the film are inaccurate. For example, one post on X called the director “a Frenchman who’d never set foot in Mexico”. Audiard, however, tells the that he went to Mexico several times, looking to shoot the film there, as well as cast the main roles.
“I had the idea of making an opera of Emilia Pérez and then I got a bit scared, I felt like I needed to inject some realism into it,” he says. “So I went to Mexico, and we scouted there during the casting process as well, maybe two, three times and something wasn’t working. And I realised that the images I had in my mind of what [the film] would look like just didn’t match the reality of the streets of Mexico. It was just too pedestrian, too real. I had a much more stylised vision in my mind. So that’s when we brought it to Paris and reinjected the DNA of an opera within it.”
“And also,” he adds, “it might be a little bit pretentious of me, but did Shakespeare need to go all the way to Verona to write a story about that place?”
Judging by the film’s success in awards season, many critics and voters must agree with Audiard, or at least, believe Emilia Pérez has strong artistic merit regardless of this issue.
“I felt it was hugely fresh as a piece of work when I saw it,” James Mottram, a British film critic, says. “I mean, a brand-new take on the cartel story, a very unusual musical, a transgender story. Just combining those three elements is a feat of narrative dexterity. I admire the bravery of the film more than anything. Audiard has worked in the crime genre before – if you could call this a crime film – with movies like The Beat That My Heart Skipped, but this felt brand new. And as a critic, that’s what you’re always looking for – someone who’s taking on divisive subjects and putting a fresh spin on them.
“You can call Emilia Pérez a soap opera as well as an opera, and it is a fantasy on some level, I don’t think it is supposed to be an authentic portrayal of the cartels. However, it’s difficult, I can understand why some Mexicans are offended when it’s such a sensitive subject for them, and not that many were involved in the production.
“There’s been complaints from the trans community about it as well. Audiard’s been attacked from all angles really, and perhaps understandably, but I think when you do something risky and divisive, that’s always going to happen.”
Jacques Audiard says that he first had the idea for the film after reading some of French author Boris Razon’s novel Écoute, which featured in one chapter the minor character of a drug lord “who wanted to transition” but “Boris hadn’t followed up on the idea”, as Audiard puts it.
