Surreal narco-musical Emilia Perez and epic immigrant drama The Brutalist were the big winners at the Golden Globes on Sunday, as prizes were shared widely across an international crop of movies at the year’s first major showbiz awards gala.
French director Jacques Audiard’s Mexico-set Emilia Perez took four prizes, including best comedy or musical film, while The Brutalist was named best drama and also picked up best actor for Adrien Brody, who plays a Hungarian Holocaust survivor.
Emilia Perez, about a drug lord who transitions to life as a woman, had entered the night with the most nominations at 10.
It won for best non-English language film and best original song, while Zoe Saldana took best supporting actress honors, nudging out her co-star Selena Gomez.
“You can maybe put us in jail, you can beat us up, but you never can take away our soul, our resistance, our identity,” said Karla Sofia Gascon, the film’s star, who is transgender.
She added: “Raise your voice… and say, ‘I won. I am who I am, not who you want’.”
Big wins at the Globes can help movies earn new audiences and build vital momentum toward the Oscars in early March.
Sunday also proved an important night for The Brutalist, which shrugged off concerns over its sprawling runtime to earn best director for Brady Corbet.
“I was told that no one would come out and see it,” said Corbet, of his epic about a Jewish architect who survives Nazi persecution and emigrates to the United States.
“No one was asking for a three-and-a-half hour film about a mid-century designer… but it works,” he added.
In one of the night’s biggest upsets, Brazil’s Fernanda Torres won best actress in a drama film for I’m Still Here, which chronicles a family ripped apart by the country’s military dictatorship in the 1970s.
Brody’s win was one of the night’s remarkable career comebacks, more than two decades after he became the youngest ever Oscar best actor winner for The Pianist, in which he also played a Holocaust survivor. AFP
