Ema
EMA - MUBIEma is the latest film from a Chilean auteur Pablo Larraín. Having completed festival circuits and garnered a handful of accolades, it has premiered worldwide on MUBI — where it is currently available to stream.
Astute moviegoers will likely associate Pablo Larraín with his brief romance with prestige Hollywood filmmaking. In 2016, he directed Jackie, a biographical account of the aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, which also happened to be the only movie he made outside of Chile. It is one of the two most accessible anchoring points a viewer could refer to before seeking out Ema. The other, of course, is No — for which the director was awarded the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2012.
Therefore, Larraín’s newest creation is bound to leave a section of its viewership confused, and perhaps somewhat disappointed, because it is a distinct departure from any notions of familiarity or accessibility. In fact, Ema is stylistically and thematically more reminiscent of the filmmaker’s earlier efforts. However, because Larraín’s previous movies remain largely unknown to international audiences, the experience of watching Ema may be a bit shocking and invariably lead some viewers to dismissing it as an exercise in style over substance.
This would be most hurtful, because while the film draws attention to itself with its highly formal aesthetics, it doesn’t lack substantive thought. It is simply hidden within the subtext. Beneath its lush colour palette and Larraín’s characteristic elements of camera work, such as slow Kubrickianzooms and insistence on symmetrical framing, Ema harbours a thematically rich conversation about modern-day Chile. This story about a young dancer (Mariana Di Girolamo), her crumbling marriage to Gastón (Gael García Bernal, Pablo Larraín’s habitué) and their odyssey of guilt, regret and denial after turning their backs on their adopted son is much more than an unnecessarily ‘artsy-fartsy’ relationship drama served through a filter of sexual awakening. Even though it invites comparisons to Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, such parallels are merely superficial, because the film’s focus is likely elsewhere and it is almost completely symbolic.
To understand Ema, it is crucial to tease out why dance is its integral part. In simplest terms, dancing is a visceral form of artistic and emotional expression, which also happens to be available to everyone. Better or worse, every single person can move their body in response to a musical stimulus. It separates the soul from the shackles of earthly existence. For Ema and her young Chilean contemporaries, it is also a vehicle for cultural defiance and liberation. Consequently, the entire film can be read as a symbolic act of acknowledgment that Chile’s younger generations (represented by Ema) are sick and tired of living in the shadow of their country’s past. However, they are not keen to join ranks with the generation of their parents (condensed to the character of Gastón), whose existence was defined by opposing Augusto Pinochet’s tyrannical regime. They want nothing to do with either side of the political divide that has characterized life in Chile for nearly half a century. They don’t want to choose which way to lean. They want to be free to say what they want, express themselves the way they want, sleep with who they want and love who they want.
That – in a nutshell – is what Ema is about and it’s not necessarily impossible to deduce. This fundamental message is even codified within the film’s opening shot depicting a burning traffic light. It suggests that defying rules is not enough and purging the rulebook is what’s truly required. Therefore, this isn’t just a movie about a failing marriage, jazzy colours, graphic sex and flamethrowers but a statement of understanding that if Chile is to have a future, it needs to disentangle itself from its past and embrace a whole new perspective on life, relationships and culture. Just as No was an anthem of defiance against militaristic oppression, Ema is one for revolutionary progressivism.
Delivered using a characteristically provocative visual language, this film marks Pablo Larraín’s return to the thematic conversation, which has dominated the bulk of his cinematic pursuits, though with a completely fresh perspective and a kind of sophisticated confidence that may – unfortunately – end up completely misunderstood. Ema is a dense cinematic experience defined by its strong visuals and, as such, it is a bit of an acquired taste — but it surely ranks among the filmmaker’s strongest works. It is a daring, hypnotic and complex concoction of colours, themes, ideas and political statements that, although overwhelming and bewildering, will lodge itself in the viewer’s subconsciousness long after the credits roll.
EMA is streaming exclusively via MUBI
