Pearl (2018)

Directed by: Elsa Amiel | 82 minutes | drama | Actors: Julia Föry, Peter Mullan, Vidal Arzoni, Arieh Worthalter, Agata Buzek, Khoudiedji Sidibe, Edgard John-Augustin, Camille Bouzaglo, Roland Morel, Dany Jacot-Descombes, Aniela Fik

In the world of bodybuilders, a striking place has been reserved for female powerhouses. It is generally accepted that some men inflate themselves to gigantic proportions, because iron musculature is considered to be a masculine thing. But women who work up a sweat to possess these characteristics attributed to men deviate so far from the norm that other gender roles are at stake, as with Lea in ‘Pearl’ (2018).

Lea Pearl has thrown off all the usual roles, she’s not a wife or mother, she’s a body she built. A construction to win prizes with. She has a relationship with her trainer; sex is a means of shedding extra calories just before it’s time to get weighed. They live in the twilight world of a hotel, outside everyday reality, together and in competition with other shiny tanned, half-naked, sculpted bodies, en route through corridors lined with plastic, each in the isolation of his own body.

As Lea and her trainer prepare for the championship for the title of Miss Heaven, her ex suddenly shows up with their six-year-old son, whom she left years ago. The ex, an eternal loser, dumps the child with her because he has a job, and leaves. Lea is forced to weigh up her feelings for her child, her ex, her trainer and her ambitions. For the little boy, his mother’s world resembles that of the superheroes from his comics. The difference is, these supermen and women are a lot more vulnerable; you just run into them crying on the stairs.

Debuting feature film director Elsa Amiel often opts for shots extremely close to the skin, but keeps a sufficient distance from the uncomfortable subject and avoids an exhaustive psychologization of the main character. Rather than raw realistic, ‘Pearl’ is rather hyper stylized and colourful, giving this not particularly sympathetic world of obsessive self-aggrandizement and escapism in increasingly extreme forms of perfection, but also a certain surreal and glamorous beauty.