Risky Business: Audiard Surprises with Vibrant Genre Musical
Although it’s assembled from unlikely, even questionable sources, Jacques Audiard’s latest feature, Emilia Pérez, a genre and gender blending Mexico City set musical, is surprisingly skilled. Though destined for naysayers who will want to overlook its Almodovarian sense of soap opera (and thus requiring a certain suspense of disbelief), told as it is from the perspective of a director who is three cultural layers removed from its eponymous character, it’s a compelling odyssey of mixed tropes which coalesce into a film not only vigorous but bold. In its own blunt way, the film exemplifies the enhancing power of what musicals can be, when excessive interior emotion can be so heavy, channeling it through song breaks the artifice of traditional boundaries as an alternative way to reach a desired authenticity.… Read the rest
