The new soap opera offered by Cubavisión incorporates characters from five titles by the British writer and makes them live in an imaginary Brazilian valley
While there is still too much history and too many conflicts to tell in the Boran Mansion (Eternally, MultivisionMonday to Friday), at the end of Lucía Batista’s anguish in the search for her lost son – with an ending that did not satisfy many -, Cubavisionwith the complicity of the Rio Globo Network, takes us from Mr. Bolsonaro’s Brazil (New Sun) to the beginning of the 20th century with Pride and passion.
To the team of screenwriters, led by the multi-award-winning Marcos Bernstein (he has gained more fame in cinema: Central Station, Zuzu Angel), came up with the brilliant idea of adapting almost the entire novel by the British Jane Austen to an imaginary coffee valley of the South American giant, a few years before the Getulio Vargas Era, when that country was trying to escape a structural economic crisis. marked by extensive and obsolete agriculture, with the construction of modern communication routes and more advanced techniques.
In this way, they extracted much of the main plot from the iconic Pride and prejudice and the characters of Elizabeth Bennett (Nathalia Dill), now “Brazilianized” as Elisabeta Benedito, and her sisters Jane (Pâmela Tomé) and Lidia (Bruna Griphao); of Sense and Sensibilitythey brought in Marianne Dashwood, now turned Mariana Benedito (Chandelly Braz), although it must be clarified that Elisabeta has a lot of Elinor from the film version of this title, written and starring Emma Thompson in 1997.
The one that did undergo a name change was Cecilia Benedito (Anajú Dorigon), inspired by the Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey. Like her predecessor, Cecilia is “mistakenly concerned that she is not beautiful enough, until men begin to take an interest in her at balls.”, as Jane Austen describes it to us. A lover of mystery novels like Catherine, Cecilia’s icon is not Gothic fiction but Arthur Conan Doyle. Sometimes, because of her specialty in getting into trouble, she remembers Enola Holmes, the sister who has now been found for Sherlock in literature and cinema.
As might be expected, there are characters from Pride and prejudice that had to be repeated in this cocktail with works by Jane Austen. Obviously Darcy (Thiago Lacerda, a very popular actor among our viewers, protagonist of Terra Nostra, Seven Women and Pages of Lifeamong others), Elisabeta’s love interest, and the whiny and rude Mrs. Bennet (here it is Ofelia Beneditoplayed by another acquaintance of ours, the effective Vera Holtz), the mother who dreams of marrying her daughters to millionaires.
I couldn’t miss either Emma Woodhousethe protagonist of the novel of the same name by our beloved Austen, now tropicalized as Enma Cavalcante (Agatha Moreira). As good Jane would say, determined to play matchmaker for her friends, Enma forgets to pay attention to her own feelings. Although there is a difference between both characters: Cavalcante’s family does have financial difficulties.
A soap opera without villains is not a good soap opera. And of Lady Susan The protagonist, who became Susana Adonato, has been extracted, here played by that great actress who is Alessandra Negrini who has left her sensuality behind in The wall and has resumed without repeating his evil deeds Tropical paradise and Side to side. And among the pleasant surprises, we see that they have rescued Sense and Sensibility to the kind Colonel Brandon, transformed into Colonel Brandão, personified by another old acquaintance, Malvino Salvador (remember him?: the suitor spurned by the pretty mulatica in Cabocla; the good single father in Traces of lies).
Among other intertextualities present in this soap opera is the veteran Tarcisio Meira (1935-2021) as Lord Williamson. It turns out that he starred as Captain Rodrigo Cambará in the iconic Brazilian series time and wind (1985) which later in the 2014 remake had Thiago Lacerda, the now Darcy of Pride and passion. Will this coincidence have any impact on the script?
And if it’s about old acquaintances, we have the special performance of that formidable performer, Ary Fontoura (Love is paid with love, Roque Santeiro, Trail of lies), while the general direction is by Fred Mayrink, co-director of other great hits, very popular in Cuba, such as Chocolate with pepper, Cabocla and pages of life.
So we have a new soap opera, as a sports commentator friend of mine would say. Let’s wait for the conflicts, the naiveté of the good guys, the evil stupidity of the bad guys and the extensions of the astute scriptwriters in this tropicalized Jane Austen with a coffee aroma.
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*Journalist and university professor. National Historical Journalism Award for the work of life 2021
