POWER OF EVA AFTER DEATH

MAGIC REALISM SPINS THREE DIFFERENT TIME NARRATIVES INTO ONE

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Eva Peron obtained political cult status by teaching social justice and supporting female suffragettes in Argentina.

Director Rodrigo Garcia personifies the cult status in the film by following the tragic story of the embalmed corpse. Salma Hayek executive produces the series.

This sometime maudlin series combines the narrative of how the corpse of Eva Peron was treated with the back story of Eva’s rise in popularity.

Natalie Oriero plays Peron as a passionately determined influencer of her husband, Argentinian President Juan Domingo Peron, and the people.

Eva suffered an early death to cervical cancer while Peron still ruled Argentina. And then Presidential Plans are made to guarantee Eva’s influence after her death by embalming her body and putting Eva on public display.

Three copies of the body are made for security purposes, but the Peron Government soon falls to a military coup and the copies and the real body became confused and lost.

Garcia begins the narrative with a journalist attempting to uncover the story of what happened to the corpse of Eva Peron several years after she had died. The journalism angle is a third narrative happening in real movie time while being subordinate to the near past of the corpse and the further past of Peron as a political activist while her husband is President.

This motif is that of the magic realism rooted in a deeply Christian Latin American culture with the story of the corpse being more important than the real life story of Eva and the live event telling created by the journalist.

Garcia like the journalist is stuck with the truth in telling the story – the good and the bad and the spiritual.

This truthful telling mirrors the difficult life of the Argentinian people living in poverty surrounded by natural wealth but battered down by evil while following God. 

Similarly to the impact of impressionist painting on early film, magical realism has beginnings in painted art forms.

A light music score has been layered overtop of many scenes that are driven by dialogue and the unknowing parts of the script. Part of what makes this series compelling is the unusual subject matter and the unwillingness to really accept what is being told as being true. The audience seems to hang on a bit for an unknowing awkwardness to leave.

Several scenes involve the embalmed corpse being groped and spoken to by Eva’s beloved followers from the inner circle of power who finally find themselves with access to the cultural icon in her death.

Another problem with this series is that the Spanish dialogue is poorly dubbed into English. This dubbing creates a delay that results in an awkwardness exacerbated by the subject matter.

The other problem with Santa Evita is that this story is dragged out into a series when a feature length film might have been more appropriate.

This story raises a lot of curiosities about Argentinian culture, which may or may not be a bad result.

The journalism narrative is eventually wound tought with the other two narratives as the journalist finally meets up with the general in charge of the corpse to interview him about what happened as the series draws to an end.

The series, though, overemphasizes the corpse narrative when more insight could have been shown about why Eva Peron obtained the cult status with flash backs to historical events. The journalism narrative drives the series as more of a backstory when the corpse narrative should have been the back story.

Santa Evita is streaming on Disney in Canada.