Ema
17 The Octagon, Dunedin, Otago
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Pure, unadulterated cinema, the latest from Chilean maestro Pablo Larraín is straight fire: a scorching character study of one woman’s pursuit of sexual and political liberation, lit up by Mariana Di Girolamo’s sensational lead performance.
Few films in recent memory have blazed a trail as passionately as Pablo Larraín’s Ema, which signals the director’s return to the present and his native Chile via the incandescent city of Valparaíso.
Virtual unknown Mariana Di Girolamo, in a star turn you won’t be able to take your eyes off, plays the titular dancer, mother and pyro-lover impervious to social norms. On a quest to reclaim her adopted son Polo, whose absence explains her deteriorating marriage to choreographer Gastón (Gael García Bernal), Ema sets out on a path of deliberate resistance, embracing the orgasmic street movement of reggaeton and embarking on a fluid succession of relationships with people of all genders in her orbit. For reasons that don’t need explaining, she also owns a flamethrower and rejoices in burning shit down – a none-too-subtle metaphor for her relentless pursuit of catharsis and the film’s white-hot energy through which creative and sexual expression bursts forth.
Every bit the firecracker that had critics in Venice, where it premiered, clamouring for superlatives, Larraín’s film is visually stunning, fuelled with combustible symbolism and physicality, and a genuine war cry for dancers, lovers and the matriarchy everywhere. — Tim Wong
QUOTE
[Ema] pulsate[s] with rambunctious, unbridled energy… A bold, ambitious work, graced by a towering performance by Di Girolamo, who dances through it with an irresistible and intoxicating aura. — Leonardo Goi, Mubi Notebook
https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/venice-2019-broken-men-and-ladies-on-fire
FILMMAKER BIO
Pablo Larraín was born in Santiago, Chile. His international breakthrough, Tony Manero (2008), was followed by Post Mortem (2010), No (NZIFF12), The Club (NZIFF15) and Neruda (NZIFF16). In 2016 he directed his first English-language film, the Oscar-nominated Jackie.
CREDITS
Ema
Chile
2019
Director: Pablo Larraín
Producer: Juan De Dios Larraín
Screenplay: Guillermo Calderón, Pablo Larraín, Alejandro Moreno
Photography: Sergio Armstrong (ADFCH)
Editor: Sebastián Sepúlveda
Production designer: Estefanía Larraín
Costume designers: Muriel Parra, Felipe Criado
Music: Nicolas Jaar Production
With: Mariana Di Girolamo, Gael García Bernal, Paola Giannini, Santiago Cabrera, Cristián Suárez
Festivals: Toronto, Venice 2019
In Spanish with English subtitles
102 minutes/CinemaScope
Censors rating R16 sex scenes, offensive language & nudity
Presented in association with George FM
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