The Quiet Profundity of Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta

Because of its quite literal connection to the human form, fashion offers a unique means of self-expression, of externalizing the interior self. While other works of art can exist beyond the artist or the audience, clothing requires a living, moving body to be fully appreciated. But personal aesthetics can be something of a double-edged sword, as much of an armor or exoskeleton — protecting your vulnerabilities and projecting a false image of who you are — as it is a way to genuinely present yourself. 

El Planeta, the debut feature from Spanish filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist Amalia Ulman, is fascinated with the ways that clothing can tell a deceptive story about the person wearing it. Ulman herself plays Leonor, a young woman with a strongly defined sense of taste with the possibility of a thriving career as a stylist and designer. Though the cultural context is hyper-specific, Leonor faces a crossroads in her life that’s regrettably familiar to many millennials: She’s forced to move back in with her mother, María, played by Amalia’s real-life mother Ale Ulman, after the death of her father. Leonor is from a remote, wayward seaside community called Gijón, set within the isolated and autonomous Asturias region; there are job opportunities in unaffordable cities like London and New York, but even Madrid and Barcelona are a world away from a small cobblestone town full of senior citizens.

At first glance, Leonor quite clearly stands out, draped in a mixture of designer brands and homemade pieces. Her style is like something straight out of my Instagram explore page — loud, maximalist and often boldly mismatched. But because of how Ulman captures her world, Leonor is as invisible as she is visible, her clothing so clearly a way of standing out from the humdrum existence around her, but also a disguise that allows her to pretend she’s more stable and successful than she actually is. Ulman’s camera is often static and slow, the monochromatic color scheme of her lens muting the bright colors we can only assume make up her character’s wardrobe. There’s a sense of droll absurdity reminiscent of filmmakers like Aki Kaurismäki or Jim Jarmusch, but the black-and-white here almost lends a sense of uneasiness — a world we expect to be filled with color is completely drained of it. Leonor might be stylish, but she is rarely ever stylized. Almost every frame is captured in wide, deep focus, letting the details of Leonor’s outfits and background textures wash over you rather than overwhelm.

Leonor’s fashion sense might also be a means of differentiating herself from her mother — using style as a defense mechanism clearly runs in the family. María is elegant and seemingly unaging, a former dancer with a slim figure, an obsession with cats and a deep belief in the supernatural. Instead of looking for work, she spends most of her time writing down the names of her enemies on slips of paper that she then puts in her freezer, hoping those who have wronged her will be visited by an icy chill. Since the passing of María’s husband, her life has become an elaborate, endless con, with one little scam or grift after another, selling the illusion however she can. She has to resort to shoplifting, but still wears a fur coat while doing so; she convinces everyone she meets that her daughter is dating a famous politician so she can credit her expenditures to his seemingly endless tab.

In a scene that’s as breathtakingly acted as it is heartbreaking to watch, María comes completely undone while talking on the phone, sharing the shame and humiliation she feels about her financial circumstances, her lack of lifetime work experience and her inability to qualify for assistance in a Spain struggling with the aftershocks of financial and political crisis. In a split second, her body and demeanor completely transform as she answers an incoming call — it’s a grocery delivery boy, checking to make sure she’ll be home in the next hour. She effortlessly asks if he can throw in a bag of oranges, and per usual, assures him that she’ll pay up at the end of the month. 

As much as Leonor wants to break this cycle, it’s one she’s trapped in as well: She has a devoted social media following to maintain, a personal image and sense of style to keep up with, and a career that could either take off or completely fall apart. Leonor gets an opportunity to style a photoshoot for Christina Aguilera, but her team won’t expense her flight; she sells her sewing machine, and awkwardly looks for sex work on Craigslist. She hits it off with a man because they’re both wearing zebra print, but once the well-dressed facade fades away, she learns he’s just another married man looking for a one-night stand.

Though El Planeta’s short runtime, quiet demeanor and detailed costuming might feel relaxed and unassuming, there’s a profound sense of sadness at the film’s core. It’s not just the fact that you know the jig will be up sooner rather than later, but the difficult truths found within — the way in which women are made to be reliant on the support of men, unable to do what they need to take care of themselves once that man is gone, but also the panicked desperation of people who have never had to be desperate before, who still have appearances to keep up while everything else falls apart.