SANTA EVITA
From director Rodrigo García (who helmed the first and best series of In Treatment) and executive producer Salma Hayek, this is a curious reappraisal of a much-scrutinised figure. The story of Argentinian icon Eva Perón (Natalia Oreiro) is overshadowed by a certain hit musical, so this Spanish-language series, based on the book by Tomás Eloy Martínez, takes a smart and creatively interesting decision to begin at the end, with the day of her death in July 1952. Santa Evita looks at her legend, instead of her life, through the embalming process and subsequent disappearance of her corpse when the military junta seized control of the country just two years later.
Telling the story across two timelines (and mostly resisting the temptation to flash-back into her life), it follows the days of national mourning and tense political manoeuvring that followed her death (Ernesto Alterio plays the sinister, perhaps depraved Colonel Carlos Eugenio de Moori Koenig with glorious relish here) alongside the work of a journalist (Diego Velázquez) who, in 1971, discovers that Evita’s body may be returned to her husband. The production has a touch of the telenovela, from its operatic score to some at times wobbly performances, but the new angle pays dividends.