Encarnación

The opening scene of Embodiment is as commonplace as it is revealing: a woman googles a name on the Internet and looks for a positive review. It’s her own name. Erni is an actress, once very popular, now her advancing age seems to have affected her status.
Anahí Beneri asked the actress Silvia Pérez to play the role of Erni. She had once been a young film star in the eighties herself. Actress and character coincide convincingly. Dressed just a little too young in pink with a bling-bling and by now too eager to please, Erni has to make more and more concessions to get any work. At the same time, she displays professionalism, takes her fans seriously and braves the frowns of her family, who have distanced themselves from her public life. As a result, her dilemma easily transcends pathos and characterises a lonely yet determined professional woman. When Erni travel to the countryside for the birthday of her 15-year-old niece, this girl turns out to be the only one interested in the warm inner side of her extravagantly and cheaply dressed aunt. The two of them enter into a loving female contest that is warmer than the ‘love’ both of them are used to on the home front.
There is no melodrama in Embodiment and Beheri manages to sketch a sensitive analysis of female identity and stigmas about the feminine body through natural acting and minor details.

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