“The Eternaluta”the last mega production of Netflix From Latin America (one of its most expensive investments in the region after “one hundred years of solitude”), it has become a real hit among subscribers of the streaming platform worldwide.
At the close of this publication, the series based on the famous 1957 trans -Andean cartoon It was positioned as the most watched title of the service in 13 countriesall this before its Season second.
After decades of failed attempts to adapt the influential work of Héctor Germán Oesterheld and the cartoonist Francisco Solano López —And after raising the work attacks of the Covid-19 Pandemia, which delayed its own organization chart-the project saw the light last week preceded by a worldwide expectation, with more questions than answers about the new directions of the Buenos Aires plot.
While its creators have remarked that It is not a literal adaptation of the comic, but a story based on the universe of “the eternal”the truth is that its first cycle sows intrigues directly related to the narrative knot proposed by Oesterheld, and under a feat not less: installing Juan exceptits protagonist, no longer in the 40s, but on the dystopic days of 2025.
Next, seven points about why “the eternal” is today one of the unmissable premieres of 2025.
1) An apocalyptic plot (and Memories of COVID-19)
The series starts like this. A summer night, In Buenos Aires, a mysterious mortal snowfall ends with most of the population and leaves thousands of people isolated. Among them are Juan except (Ricardo Darín) and his friends, who begin a desperate survival struggle while saving, on their own, He undertakes a trip through the city in search of his daughter.
“Everything changes when they discover that the toxic snowstorm is only the first shock force of an army of another planet that is invading the earth. The only way to stay alive will be to resist and fight together. No one is saved alone, ”details the official synopsis of production.
Five years after the pandemic of COVID-19 and its sanitary and planetary restrictions (with quarantines and isolation measures throughout the world), the images and memories of that era are unavoidable. In “El Eternalauta”, its inhabitants are also desperate and disoriented, and it is under that rictus that must look for an exit.
Any similarity to reality?
2) Buenos Aires as never before you saw it
One of the visual attractions of “El Eternalauta” lies in how Buenos Aires looks throughout its Six chapters. In practice, and as in the original cartoon, The Argentine capital works as one more character. And not at all secondary.
“Its streets, buildings and borders are an intrinsic part of the series. The walls and posters also offer a current immersion – future points of what life is today – in the same way that the ‘free’ and advertisements of that time are distinguished in the comic, details an official Netflix dossier dedicated to production.
For this reason, on the screen it is possible to find allusions to the FALVINAS WARto contemporary life (to the current Empire of Delivery, for example), to the trans -Andean idiosyncrasy and its Creole vision of how to face the world (and its end).
“What we did was try to capture the spirit, the atmospheres, the aesthetics and the places of El Eternalauta I and IIbut not necessarily following the chronology raised in the comic. I think it has much more incidence in the entire arch of the series the first fascicle, regardless of whether there are things of the second we are using, ”he said Bruno Stagnarodirector of “The Eternaluta”.
3) An anti-marvel series (here are not manufactured superheroes)
It was established by Héctor Germán Oesterheld before being disappeared by the last Argentine military dictatorship in 1977: “The true hero of El Eternalauta is a collective hero, a human group. Thus reflects, although without prior intention, my intimate feeling: The only valid hero is the hero ‘in group’, never the individual hero, the hero alone ”.
While the story follows the narrative codes of the adventure and the topic of “the group mission”, it is installed kilometers (literal and symbolic) of the Hollywodenses stories of science fiction and the subgenre of superheroes.
- Here, survival solutions go through salaried workers, engineers, satin military, delivery distributors, “Truco” playersunemployed young people and adults in retirement. No super powers or gestures, much less individual and heroic feats. In “The Eternaluta”, the characters must first protect their lives because they know that no one will watch over them.
4) “The Eternaluta”: The old still works
Without delivering major spoilers, one of the plot trunks of adaptation around this idea: The old still works. But not only in the practical dimension of things, but also in its human scope (“The old still work”).
In “El Eternalauta”, the obsolescence It is also reflected in human groups that face invaders, mostly relegated from society either by age, for their sociocultural origins or for bad personal decisions.
This scriptural course is linked to a certain Argentine that breathes throughout the series: in the face of the great obstacles of the planetary threat, the characters opt for alternative, artisanal and creative paths to achieve their objectives.
Stagnaro reflects, the director: “The Eternaluta has a very local character in the way of facing huge difficulties with elements that are at hand. From the limitation, the characters find how to get ahead. I feel that this is conceptually very present in history and also in the way we carry it forward when building it. Beyond that, in the case of a national production, the resources were giant, they would not have achieved for the scale we needed. That forced us to find a new way to solve. ”
5) A Darin in its best version
“When Matías (Mosteirín) proposed that Ricardo was the protagonist, I really had a nonsense”Stagnaro confessed. “Basically, because it is a very physical story, where The protagonist of the cartoon is about 40 years old, and Ricardo more than 60. That’s why I discarded it flat. But Matías insisted: ‘Think, “he told me.”
With the scripts already advanced, Darín finally joined the project. “The Eternaluta passes in real time and it was necessary that except I knew how to shoot with a lot. Oesterheld had resolved it very well in the cartoon: except is reservist, something that in the 50s was quite common. But there was then a critical look of political order regarding that decision. That today was a character very close to the world of weapons would have another reading, different from the original, ”said Stagnaro.
In the plot of Netflix, except is a veteran of the Falklands War, a fact that becomes key in its survival and in the turns of history. The result is outstanding. With a Darin in his best version, Juan except for the small screen is a tanned and hard man, but empathic with his surroundings and the vicissitudes of his friends. A deep and definitive, adventurous and apocalyptic, as you had never seen.
6) Entrañable characters
While the dramatic weight of the story falls completely to save, the characters that surround it function as a perfect squad for the characteristics of the protagonist.
In this regard, the work of Ariel statelyco -author of “El Eternalauta” of Netflix and interpreter of Omaran Argentine who after making a life as a salaried worker in the US returns to Argentina after years in self -exam.
“It is an apocalyptic story with universal condiments, but with the specificity placed in our idiosyncrasy, with many touches of Argentine”resume.
Another unforgettable character is Alfredo “Tano” Favalli (César Troncoso): An already retired electrical engineer who officiates hosts at his friends at the time of toxic snow. In the development of history, their role and their skills become essential. And not only for the functional knowledge that “El Tano” handles, but because the Oesterheld’s founding premise will be carried out: it is impossible to save itself.
7) A megap production in figures
“The eternalauta”, somehow, It is also the triumph of Argentine cinema in the Hollywood audiovisual industry. With more than 5 years of work, production became the second largest investment in Netflix in the region, a fact that is seen on the screen on each frame.
The series had 148 Daming Days (133 with Darín), 2900 people between cast and extras, more than 50 real locations, 30 virtual scenarios, 598 tons of salt (for snow purposes), 28 double action doubles, around 15 trucks and 100 clothing hangers (equivalent to 300 meters in a straight line), just to name some data (500 masks were manufactured for the characters, for example).
“Not always one has the opportunity to see the city where she lives portrayed as in the largest productions in Hollywood,” says Argentine Marcelo Martínez, one of the chiefs of locations in the series.
In its terrain filming, production not only needed to obtain authorizations and organize the logistics of traffic cuts, contemplating the necessary hours to locate the snow and mount the set, but also that it was cloudy as much days as possible.
