Fucked Up Free TV Premiere: Orgies, Whale Songs, and a Flamethrower in a Crazy, Classy Frenzy of Imagery

+++ Opinion +++

A young woman is with an older choreographer and works as a teacher during the day, although she mainly lives for the music, which she indulges in at night as part of a dance troupe: that sounds like the stuff of an everyday dance movie. Scenes already play out before the inner eye, like a dilemma of appointments, forcing the heroine to choose between career and passion. And certainly the older choreographer teaches her discipline, but she teaches him an open attitude towards innovations! You could take all that from “Ema – She plays with fire”, but then you’re in the wrong movie:

In which intoxicating, flaming, maverick dance of bright colors and hot rhythms is a film that Pablo Larraín made between the nightmarish Jackie Kennedy biopic Jackie: The First Lady and the feverish Princess Diana fable Spencer. And like these powerful films, ‘Ema’ is a genre-bending, social convention-challenging look at an intense, compellingly complicated female character. Tonight “Ema” celebrates its free TV premiere from 23:10 on arte!

“Ema”: fiery, intense and intoxicating

Ema (Mariana Di Girólamo) and Gastón (Gael García Bernal) are members of a dance troupe and used to constant drama. However, when Ema’s adopted son Polo (Cristián Suárez) seriously injures her sister, the impassioned dancer’s patience breaks: she simply gives up on the boy – only to face harsh criticism. Neither her boyfriend nor the rest of her dance company shows understanding for this decision, and Bureau Jeugdzorg is outraged. However, Ema sees no need to feel pity or remorse. Instead, she rebels and literally sets fire to everything that doesn’t suit her with her girl gang!

A dance-mad heroine in a welding mask, as if we were in the 1980s mega hit “Flashdance”, the opening of “Ema” suggests that Larraín is trying to pay homage to the dance film genre of its own. It would not be unexpected, after all, a piece from the musical “Camelot – At the Court of King Arthur” served as a leitmotiv in “Jackie”. But then the petite and fierce platinum blonde titular heroine grabs her flamethrower and launches an attack on the biting things of everyday life – like traffic lights that dare to tell her when to go and when to stop.

It is an excellent prelude to this infectious, fast-paced dance drama that meanders between tonalities as grotesque as it is wild, because this scene not only introduces Ema with exuberant confidence. It also sets the pace for the rest of the film, in which everything is a tad louder and more outspoken: the main characters’ personalities, most notably the sexually insatiable Ema, who can’t bear anything in both the enviable and the harrowing sense. The color worlds in which the characters live, love, argue and like to argue. And the dialogues, which sometimes sound like even Ema’s personal life is a performance.

The quarrels between Ema and Gastón in particular seem fake. But not in an “Ema” harmful sense: Larraín strives for a consistent vision, and so his characters do not get out of their skin even in the meanest quarrels. They debate like they have an audience and like to shock it. Likewise, it is fitting that after several escapades that have sown disharmony, adopted child companion Ema celebrates itself as a family reunion without a hint of irony. Really sucks, but it makes sense even for Ema!

Honesty without a double meaning can only be found in “Ema” when it comes to dance and sex. For Ema always blossoms into full bloom as soon as she can passionately surrender to a rhythm – be it of music or the rhythm of an eager body. The feeling of having to represent or claim something disappears. em in those moments.

The icing on the cake are the montages, in which Larraín whips up Nicolas Jaar’s music, which has countless influences (from reggaeton to whale songs!). Dan celebrates the movie like its title character. This is accompanied, among other things, by flashing images of fiery orgies and recordings of tireless protest marches, as if it were all about an ambitious dance art performance.