'Priscilla': it is about love, but also about fear

It reassures us to clearly label the stories that are told to us on the screen in certain genres.

It's a comedy, a drama, a western, etc.

Admitting that there can be multiple variations in the argument of all of them.

Priscilla

is supposed

to be a love story.

The one that an apparently normal young woman named Priscilla Beaulieu and Elvis Presley, a mythological guy who deservedly earned the title of rock monarch, live for 15 years.

It happens to me with this supposedly romantic story that sometimes I have the feeling that I am being told a horror story.

Which is a credit to director Sofia Coppola.

There are no scares, no shocks, no bloodthirsty monsters, but the suspicion or certainty continually floats that there is something sick, abusive, enigmatic and unhealthy in a romance that enthralled public opinion and made the infinite admirers sigh with envy. of a guy with such a voice and electrifying movements.

More information

'Elvis', passable and forgettable 'biopic' about King Presley

Not feeling passionate about the cinema made by Sofia Coppola, mellifluous in so many moments and uselessly avant-garde, with exceptions like

Lost In Translation,

I never deserted

Priscilla

.

It creates mystery, compassion, disturbance in me.

It is a strange, obsessive film, with front and back.

A 14-year-old girl, whose military father's family resides on an American base in Germany, meets there the most famous, richest, idolized and desired singer, 10 years older than her.

The seduction on the part of both is immediate.

Normal in the case of the girl, with disturbing overtones in his case.

Everything seems very tender, romantic, protective, lasting.

He gets parental approval for this girl, who has not finished high school, to spend time at Graceland, the fabulous mansion he owns in Memphis, where he is permanently surrounded by his family and his usual colleagues.

Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi, at their characters' wedding, in 'Priscilla'.

And love remains over time, but this man has disturbing behaviors, and some of them are violent.

He offers his girlfriend pills to help her physical and mental state (the persistent pilling ended up killing Presley) and interminably delays a normalized sexual relationship.

A lot of touching, a lot of playing, a lot of tenderness, but no fucking.

Although he does practice it with ladies as voluptuous as Ann-Margret, Nancy Sinatra and a careful selection of fans.

The wedding and the rapid pregnancy that follows have been delayed excessively.

And although she apparently lacks nothing, Priscilla feels alone, even though she is still in love with her.

And fearful.

And managed.

There is something very murky in this exotic relationship.

And Sofia Coppola conveys it with remarkable subtlety.

There is an executioner and a victim.

Also someone who finally realizes that she has always been subjected.

More information

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There are strange things in this interesting film.

For example, its soundtrack, full of songs, does not include any performed by Elvis Presley.

And there is a key character in his existence and in his professional career, his all-powerful and sinister

manager

,

Colonel

Tom Parker, who was neither a colonel nor anything, but who exerted a monstrous influence on Presley.

I imagine that also in the tacky, luxurious and crazy image that this person embodied during his last era.

But his art did not diminish.

I see and hear in a video, taken from YouTube, Presley's last performance in Las Vegas, devastated and with the only company of a piano, and his voice gives you chills, emotion and love.

Priscilla

Director:

Sofia Coppola.

Starring:

Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Ari Cohen, Dagmara Dominczyk, Tim Post.

Genre:

biopic.

United States, 2023.

Duration:

113 minutes.

Premiere: February 14.

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