DANCE CRAZED
EMA Chilean director Pablo Larraín returns with a twisted Gen Z family drama…
Curiosity is the key to filmmaking,” notes Pablo Larraín, the Chilean filmmaker behind such acclaimed movies as Neruda and Jackie. And it this urge to explore that drew him towards the Generation Zs of his stylish new film, Ema. Originally intending to make a story about a failed adoption, with a much older female protagonist, Larraín then met his 29-year-old star Mariana Di Girolamo. “And it was like, ‘Let’s make a movie with her.’”
It meant skewing the story younger. Setting it in the lively port of Valparaíso, Larraín and his regular screenwriter Guillermo Calderón also located the tale in the world of dance. Recalling Gaspar Noé’s demented Climax with its high-energy dance scenes, Di Girolamo’s titular character performs the Puerto Rican-originated reggaetón in a company run by her husband, Gastón (Gael García Bernal).
As the story unfolds, Gastón and Ema are forced to give up their troubled adopted child, Polo, after he sets fire to their house. Larraín points out such situations are not uncommon, recalling one Italian couple who adopted a Chilean child only to return him when they discovered the boy was on Ritalin. It’s just this sort of
observation that marks Larraín out from most filmmakers. “I just feel
I can be a witness of our time, our circumstances,” he says.
Larraín admits it was a challenge to get into the headspace of those who adopt, which becomes crucial when Polo is granted new parents. “I’m a father,
I know what it is to have children and to raise them and educate them, and to have all the crisis and the beauty that comes with that. But going to an institution, applying, going through all these tests, and then one day – hey, it’s here. Bringing that process home, wow, that’s so incredible.”
Making Ema also gave the 43-yearold a big insight into millennials. “They are so different from my generation; people from one century looking at people from another century.
It’s actually like that. They are very particular. And they can be very conservative in many things. This is a generation that really cares about climate change. Not in a way that we might do – we care, we recycle and try not to pollute stuff. They are educated in the matter.”
He adds that the idea of sexuality and gender is much more fluid – something seen in the film, as Ema breaks away from her husband to bed multiple partners. “They are more open to different type of relationships,” he says. So what did his young cast make of Ema? “They’re happy because the movie is not slow. That’s what they think I do – slow movies! I showed [them] the movie and they were like, ‘Oh you’re good!’” JM
ETA | 17 APRIL / EMA OPENS NEXT MONTH.