How is Santa Evita, with Natalia Oreiro, and the sinister journey of the corpse of Eva Perón

Vigil (Natalia Oreiro) dies as soon as it starts Holy Avoidthe series that Star + will debut on Tuesday, July 26, on the exact 70th anniversary of the death of the “spiritual leader of the Nation” at the age of 33.

She is in her bed, the corpse must still feel warm and Perón kisses her on the mouth. That kiss of love on her lips is different, and a lot, when those same lips are touched year later by another soldier, Colonel Moore Koening, who spied on Eva when she was already sick. “Come on guys,” Perón says to his black and white poodles when he has to leave the master bedroom for the Spanish doctor who arrives to preserve and embalm the body of his second wife.

Natalia Oreiro, who was already another national and popular but musical icon, like Gilda, is now Evita. In the first two chaptersThat woman Y Four graves for Eve) is more than active, because those episodes – the series begins on the same cold, rainy day of her death, with her in bed, skeletal and emaciated, getting up and opening the window to see her shirtless people praying. for her health – they have the protagonist more in a horizontal position, eyes closed and make-up, than standing.

And the protagonist in that beginning is relative. Neither Juan Domingo Perón, an insurance Dario Grandinetti with wig and pose, a little malnourished, he has a lot of participation.

For those unfamiliar with the novel Thomas Eloy Martinez (1934-2010), published in 1995, Holy Avoid it is not strictly a biography of the spiritual guide, nor does it treat her as a saint, despite the book cover. Combine reality and fiction.

The corpse

It focuses on everything that happened with Eve’s corpse, the appearance of the doctor who embalmed and stored her for display in a mausoleum, which the 1955 coup prevented, and how the military subsequently identified his body and, along with other “three exact reruns” as he feels in the series, would have buried them in different places.

So at the beginning the protagonists are Colonel Moori Koening (very well Ernesto Alterio), the doctor Pedro Ara (the Catalan Francesc Orellá, protagonist of Battlements) and the journalist who composes Diego Velázquez (alter ego of Tomás Eloy Martínez), who follows the investigations in 1971.

Holy Avoid It is a classic of Latin American literature, and the most translated Argentine novel in history, hence the international interest that its adaptation has aroused. And that it took years, and finally involved Rodrigo Garcia (son of Gabriel Garcia Márquez) as director and producer, salma Hayek also engaged in the production of the series.

Strong and shocking are the images of the scene in which the inert body of Eve is stung and the blood is extracted. “Fines coronat opus”, writes Ara (The work crowns the end, in Latin). “The corpse of Eva Perón is already absolutely and definitively incorruptible”, says the doctor later. He doesn’t know what awaits him. To him, and to her body that she has cared for for years.

The series, like the novel, takes a step back in time. From 1952 to 1971 (a kind of present, at least in the first two episodes), to 1955 (the overthrow of Perón), to 1926 (when Juana, Eva’s mother, takes her and her children to greet Juan Duarte, the absent father ).

It is that in 1971 the military offered Perón to return Eva’s body to him, after the sinister journey he had had. And it is on this information that Mariano Vázquez investigates, who has Perón’s phone number in Puerta de Hierro, Madrid, and when Pocho confirms that he has good information, he moves on.

“Don’t journalism if you don’t want a mess” is a recommendation that Vázquez clearly won’t hear in the editorial office of the newspaper where he works.

The series gives way to phrases and gorillas (“The mare is dead”, “Long live the cancer”) and makes use of real, documentary, archive images, to mix with those that illuminated Chango Monti, the best director of Argentine cinema photography, of The official story Y old gringo a The secret in their eyes.

There is a lot of good production, and it shows too, from Beatriz Di Benedetto’s wardrobe to the artistic direction of Mercedes Alfonsín.

Episodes don’t reach 50 minutes, so Santa Evita can be seen in one go – there are seven, in total – starting Tuesday, July 26, when they’ll all be available.

“Holy Evita”

Very good

Drama. Argentina, 2022. Commentary on the first 2 episodes. Address: Rodrigo Garcia. With: Natalia Oreiro, Ernesto Alterio, Francesc Orella, Darío Grandinetti. Available: from Tuesday 26 July on Star +. It’s 7 episodes.