The face versus the ego

From the first face-to-face encounter, which foreshadows much that follows, the film reflects how shared memories become asymmetrical and, far from being a faithful record of the past, operate in favor of self-deception and moral evasion. While Esteban Martínez distorts memory to protect his ego, Emilia clings to the facts to confront her father in a game of hide-and-seek and shields. The father embodies an anachronistic masculinity defined by force and domination, in which power emanates from the ability to generate insecurity in the Other. The celebrated director is a character incapable of apologizing because he believes that acknowledging the harm he caused would undermine his social mask as a confident and successful man. But his refusal to make amends perpetuates his daughter’s pain and closes off any possibility of justice, leaving her trapped in the impunity of the one who caused the damage in a past of excessive alcoholism and violence. Esteban Martínez’s character refuses to see his daughter’s vulnerability because it would mean acknowledging his own weaknesses. For her part, Emilia harbors deep within her the trauma of abandonment, stemming from the lack of recognition and the sense of being discarded. Indeed, her fundamental need to be loved and acknowledged by her father becomes the very tool that enables her own submission. The “creative genius” exploits this emotional urge, manipulating her into accepting the role of Inés in the war film, thus rewriting her own trauma under the conditions imposed by her father’s direction.

It’s worth noting that the very title of Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s film raises a profound ontological and relational ambiguity. Who, truly, is the beloved? On one level, it’s the daughter, the object of a late-life love that the father attempts to choreograph in his screenplay. But the beloved is also the paternal figure himself, absent from Emilia’s life. She grows up with her mother, who sacrifices a promising acting career after separating from her husband, and now her daughter takes up that mantle.

The protagonist’s suffering face emerges in all its vulnerability when she imposes on her father the ethical imperative to take responsibility for her pain. Sorogoyen opens a window of opportunity for honesty toward the end of the film with a question that constitutes the emotional and ethical crux of his work: “Are you aware of what it has meant for me that you’re not in my life?” By verbalizing her real pain, Emilia’s face is revealed in its complete fragility, imposing on her father the ethical imperative to take responsibility for her suffering. After a prolonged silence, his response, “Yes, I am aware, and it weighs heavily on me,” introduces a dimension of empathy and sincerity that appears as a promise of healing from the pain caused, as we see the father, for the first time, accept a painful truth and acknowledge his own mistakes, instead of justifying his actions with biased narratives.

The ethical key that Rodrigo Sorogoyen offers is that a hypertrophied ego operates as a sophisticated mechanism of emotional damage and coercion, incapable of moral repair because it is blind to the pain its actions cause others. Nevertheless,  The Beloved  is a film that needs to be seen more than explained: because of the way it focuses on universal feelings and because of its careful attention to avoiding viewer distraction. The Spanish director combines color with black and white, and uses formats and textures that immerse the viewer in what truly matters: the family drama at play and the risk that success can transform great artists into insensitive beings. It is impossible not to be deeply affected by this cinematic experience.

Bioethical assessment

In the film, the father-daughter conflict embodies the clash between instrumental utilitarianism and the dignity of the person, who should never be treated as a means to an end. ^[1]  Esteban Martínez’s character uses the filming and Emilia’s vulnerability as a mere instrument for his own artistic and personal redemption. The daughter is seen as an “object,” not as a subject with her own wounds.

On the other hand, for an action against another person to be ethical, consent must be entirely free. Emilia agrees to participate in the film because it is the only way she can reconnect with her father and understand his abandonment. Bioethically, this would represent consent vitiated by emotional fragility: she accepts professional subservience and psychological stress under emotional coercion, and the director subjects her to exhausting performance, exercising his despotism under the guise of genius.

Esteban’s character substitutes aesthetic empathy for genuine empathy. He believes he empathizes with his daughter because he is able to write a screenplay about pain and give her a golden opportunity as an actress. However, he is incapable of acknowledging Emilia’s real suffering when the cameras stop rolling. Empathy arises from looking into the face of the Other and discovering in it an ethical imperative: “don’t hurt me.” ^[2]  In the film, compassion—as the act of suffering or sharing in the feelings of another—is perverted because the director doesn’t look at his daughter’s face, but rather at the actress’s frame through the viewfinder. The protagonist is in a state of extreme psychological vulnerability due to prior abandonment, and the film director’s character, instead of offering a safe space for healing, inhabits the role of a demiurge who exploits that fragility. For authentic care to exist, there must be receptive attention to the needs of the Other ^[3]  When the character of Emilia embodies Inés, the screen shows the painful contrast between being loved for what she produces (a great performance) and being cared for for what she is (a daughter, a person).

Indeed, family acceptance represents the principle of unconditional hospitality, according to which the person is accepted in their entirety, with their strengths and weaknesses. Knowing oneself to be accepted grants resilience. When a family recognizes a child’s individuality, it is granting them the “permission” and the moral strength to stand firm in the world, defend their convictions, and not allow themselves to be overwhelmed by others. ^[4]  Consequently, true recognition of Emilia does not consist of masterfully directing her in fiction, but rather in asking her forgiveness in reality, thus legitimizing the pain that her own father caused her in the past.

The philosopher Alex Honnet develops a theory of the gaze ^[5]  divided into three spheres that every human being needs to build a healthy identity and self-realization:

a) Primary love (affective relationships and family) allows the individual to develop self-confidence. Its absence implies that the person feels helpless in the face of the world;

b) The right (legal sphere) by which the subject is recognized as an equal before the law, with the same rights and dignity as others;

c) Solidarity (social esteem or community) that allows the person to feel that their skills and contributions are valued by the group, which generates self-esteem.

The film’s cinematic “trap” lies in Esteban’s attempt to repair the damage done in the first sphere (a father’s love) by jumping directly into the dynamics of the third sphere (social esteem and recognition of professional talent). Philosophically, the film exemplifies how professional success or artistic validation cannot replace or heal the lack of love and care within the original family structure. The breakdown of this structure demands an apology when harm has been inflicted, since maturity and the strength to navigate the world are not born of isolation or artificial hardening, but rather from the absolute certainty of having been seen with love, embraced in vulnerability, and recognized in one’s inherent dignity within the home.

Amparo Aygües  . Master’s Degree in Bioethics from the Catholic University of Valencia. Member of the Bioethics Observatory

***

[1]  Sgreccia, E. (2007).  Manual de Bioética I . BAC

[2]  Weil, S. (2000).  London Writings and Last Letters . Trotta.

[3]  Lévinas, E. (2015).  Ethics and Infinity . The Jellyfish Raft.

[4]  Forment, E. (1995).  Family, education and freedom .  Spirit: Notebooks of the Balmesiana Philosophical Institute ,  44 (112), 173-181.

[5]  Honneth, A. (1997).  The struggle for recognition: For a moral grammar of social conflicts . Crítica.