Eva Peron

Starring:Esther Goris, VÃctor Laplace, Christina Banegas, Pepe Novoa, Irma CÃ³rdoba, Lorenzo Quinteros, Tony Vilas, Jorge Petraglia, Enrique Liporace, Tony Lestingi, Leandro RegÃºnaga, Fernando Sureda, Danilo Devizzia, Carlos RoffÃ©, Jean Pierre Reguerraz, Miguel Tarditti, Francisco NÃ¡poli, Horacio Roca, Regina Lamm, Ariel Bonomi
Director: Juan Carlos Desanzo
Studio: Cinemateca
Product Type: DVD

Customer Reviews:

She did it all at 26 ... and died at 33.......2006-04-06

Santa Evita - and why Madonna truly was born to play her. This biography is a case for reincarnation. After Santa Evita died in 1952 ... Madonna brought her back to life in 1997.

Eva Peron was an out-of-wedlock teenager who took the train into Buenos Aires. She went from third rate actress to First Lady. From the day she died she was embalmed and immortalized. An icon Patron Saint of Ambition played by an icon herself (Madonna) years later. This is an honest account of a woman's who had so many demons they influenced Argentine social policy during her reign.

Santa Evita to the poor who adored her. A wicked witch opportunist to the rich. Only Madonna, another Patron Saint of Ambition, could play Evita on the silver screen. Both lead parallel lives ... fatherless 15-year-old daughter who ran to the big city (Buenos Aires) just like a motherless girl who hopped a place to New York at 17. Both women ran off to follow their dreams despite parental concerns. Both politically savvy, ruthless ambition, and a fire in the belly that only fame would satisfy. The similarities continue as you watch this biopic:

Eva started out an actress and became a political force to be reckoned with/Madonna was a dancer who turned to singing
Both were on the cover of Time at 26
Eva was the most powerful woman in South America at 26. Madonna the most powerful recording artist at the same age
Teenage Eva lived in pension rooms in boarding houses living off coffee before becoming First Lady of Argentina. Street urchin Madonna crashed at various friends' places before become the reigning Queen of Pop
Both looked stunning in designer gowns by French haute couture houses in Paris
Both inspire love or hate, no middle ground
Both very misunderstood since a powerful woman who is attractive is more threatening than any alpha male around to both genders
Both did not return to their home towns until they made something of themselves in a big big way - Eva from the balconey of the Casa Rosada, Madonna from the world stages of New York,London, Paris, etc
Both were brunettes who found fame with bottle blonde hair
And finally ...both epitomize the lines in one of the musicals songs: You were just a backstreet girl, hustling and fighting, scratching and biting, High Flying Adored, Did you Believe in your wildest moments - all this would be yours? That you'd become the lady of them all?"

Not entirely accurate but it's still intriguing........2005-03-02

I wished A&E would have had a 90 minute biography segment of Eva Peron instead. Reason being is that there is so much this woman accomplished in such an incredibly short period of time and she aroused such fierce passions that even after her death, mentioning her name would have caused riots and conflicts. But since they didn't this 50 minute biography at least gives us a glimpse into the life of this woman who not only made a name for herself but also became one of the most powerful and controversial woman in history.

This biography traces her meteoric rise from her humble beginnings to becoming one of the riches woman in the world. It includes several photographs and archival film footage. For the most part, the footage is pretty clear, especially during her Rainbow Tour sequence. She looks radiant, glamourous and beautiful. I wish they would have had more footage of her attending to the poor. Apparently there were news camera men with her at all times recording her at her desk or at her many public functions but in all of the documentaries, the same footage is always used. The same goes with the photographs. Being a collector of Eva Peron (I have over 100 books/magazines), I know there are hundreds of awesome photographs of the subject that they could have used but like the archival footage used, it's always the same photos. With that said, this documentary is still an interesting view. It offers some interesting pics of Eva during her years as an actress, revealing commentaries from historians and Eva Peron's friends and rivals, and some haunting photos of Eva's beautifully embalmed corpse in full colour. This is one of the most engrossing biography's in the series. Be warned however, that there is some mis-information and at times it's quite biased but for the most part, it quite factual.

To get an overview of Eva Peron, the good and the bad, I also recommend the Lifetime biography Eva Peron and of course the film musical EVITA, althought the latter should be treated solely as entertainment and NOT as a history lesson since it's extremely inaccurate in places and alot falls under the category of fantasy.

In his excellent book PERON AND THE ENIGMAS OF ARGENTINA, Robert Crassweller wrote of her (after Eva dies):

"Thus she passed from the scene...She was at once admitted to legend and indeed to sacred legend... Behind her she left an amazing amalgam of grief, guilt, mythology, celebration and despair as her friends and enemies sought to adjust to an Argentine world devoid of her central presence... Above all she left a huge space and no successor...

And later on he would write:

..."There would be no second Evita and no pretender to that eminence."

Love her or hate her, one cannot deny the mark Eva Maria Duarte de Peron left in the pages of Latin American history books. The woman was and is a star and her star still shines, just as it did over 50 years ago when she graced the world stage.

Beauty and intelligence made her powerful yet loved.......2004-12-25

Until very recently, the only way a woman could achieve political power was through a powerful man. In many of those cases, those who were able to do so accomplished their task via sexual means. Eva Peron (Evita) was such a woman. Born the illegitimate daughter of a poor woman, she was beautiful and ambitious. Combine this with a significant intelligence and the willingness to go through men until she found the one she wanted, and you have Evita. She finally managed to link up with the rising star of Juan Peron, although unlike some other political marriages, this one was based on a deep genuine affection.
As you can see from the footage on this tape, Evita was glamorous and deeply loved by the majority of the Argentine people. She spent an enormous amount of time and energy in helping the poor, and she had no qualms about pressing the flesh with them. Even though she was advised not to touch people who were clearly very sick, she did not hesitate to hug them. In watching the tape, it is surprising to see her with an extremely elaborate hairdo, wearing expensive jewelry and clothing, yet being adored by people who would not earn the cost of her outfit in their entire lives.
However, as was almost always the case in Central and South America in those times, Juan Peron's power was maintained through the military. It was only the combination of Evita's popularity with the poor and the strong arm of the military that Peron managed to stay in power. Once Evita died in her early thirties, his regime soon collapsed and he was forced to flee the country. Evita's saga after her death was bizarre. A Spanish pathologist spent years embalming her body and after Peron fell, the new Argentine rulers did not know what to do with it. They eventually shipped it to a falsely marked grave in Italy out of fear that it would be a shrine for Peron supporters. However, when Peron came back into favor, the body was returned and buried in a place of honor.
Although she was clearly a second-rate actress, Evita Peron was the biggest female star on the Latin American stage during her time. She was an excellent combination of beauty, intelligence and charm, understanding public relations in a way that no other Latin leader did. This video captures all of that. You may not approve of how she rose to power, but you cannot deny that she wielded it well.

*Fantastic* Biography.......2002-08-26

Personally, I love this biography. I first watched it about two years ago. I think that A&E could not have done a better job at doing this video. It is such a good video that I bought it from amazon.com yesterday. If you are intersted in learning about Eva Peron then I suggest watching this biography.

Admirable attempt, impossible objective: Evita is all myth!.......2002-04-12

"Around no historical figure in modern times are there such complicated myths as those that exist around the figure of Eva, second wife of Juan Peron, best-known by the affectionate diminutive, Evita." So begins the book EVITA: THE REAL LIFE OF EVA PERON. The author, Marysa Navarro, is interviewed in this video and adds, "(Evita) was the woman who invented her own myth, and she was very good at it, because she was an actress, a radio actress. She knows how to pretend to be something other than what she is." So the implication is clear, anyone hoping to remove the myths, and see the woman behind the myths, is going against Evita's wishes. And this is a formidable opponent. Evita was a genius. A genius that, unfortunately, this video (and none I have yet seen) cannot fully encompass.

Robert D. Crassweller, in his book PERON AND THE ENIGMAS OF ARGENTINA, notes that, "(Evita's) brief and dazzling years were so successful because, in good part, she was so profoundly of the ethos . . . but it was the ethos of the old Hispanic Creole tradition . . . (pp. 248)." He further notes that, "All Hispanic life seemed to be concentrated in a series of distant opposites held in very uneasy tension. The vastly rich and the totally poor; the highest of religious ideals and the lowest of conniving practices; unquestioning loyalty and foul treachery . . . a society of disjointed dualisms, lacking any continuum (pp. 27)." The author argues that understanding this concept of extremes, so counter to Anglo-Saxon sensibilities, is key to understanding Hispanic culture. Since Evita lived in and embodied Hispanic culture, any biography of her that does not take this into account is doomed to fall short of an enlightened depiction of her. And that is what happens with this video.

Don't get me wrong; this is an interesting video. What is most interesting about this video is the wide range of people who are interviewed, most of them authors, but a few friends and admirers. These include: a photographer from Evita's modeling days, film star Libertad Lamarque, Tomas Eloy Martinez (author of SANTA EVITA), Lillian Guardo (friend who accompanied Evita on her tour of Europe), historian Felix Luna, and Maria Elena Warner (resident of the "Evita City" housing district, which Evita founded). This wide range of commentators, some pro-Evita and some not, is wonderful. Unfortunately, no one is really given a very long time to talk. It really leaves you wanting more.

Somewhat irritating is the fact that while this video succeeds in dispelling certain myths about Evita (such as the belief that she helped free Peron from jail in 1945, thus ushering him into his first presidential term), it reinforces others. The most notable re-told myths being: the idea that Evita had Libertad Lamarque "blacklisted" from working in Argentine cinema ("Libertad left Argentina for Mexico in 1946... Since the Mexican movie industry was in better shape . . . Libertad Lamarque's films were always shown in Argentina, and she came back frequently to see her family." EVITA: THE REAL LIFE OF EVA PERON, pp. 202); the assertion that Peron was a fascist ("Peronism was not fascism. Some of Peronism's adherents had a fascist outlook and mentality . . . But all this was relatively superficial. No fascist society was ever erected on a mass base of laboring and dispossessed hordes. In its own description, Peronism rejected the Fascist parallel. It was more intimately grounded in the national history and ethos than was any European fascism." PERON AND THE ENIGMAS OF ARGENTINA, pp. 220). Thus this video claims by its title to dispel myths, but it really just perpetuates some.

Interesting and eerie is the fact that never-before-shown footage of Evita's embalmed corpse is included. Evita had been dead several decades at this point, and yet her corpse is perfectly preserved like Lenin's. Unsettling to the North American observer, such an attitude toward death could be seen in light of the "Hispanic preoccupation with death and with the splendor and dignity associated with it (PERON AND THE ENIGMAS OF ARGENTINA, pp. 248)." Again, this cultural distinction is not mentioned by the narrator.

Not surprisingly, it is Madonna herself who seems to grasps the most important aspect of Evita's life and personality: the tradition of polarization. "I became sort of obsessed with her," Madonna confesses in a very brief sound bite, "People I talked to were either completely for her or completely against her. That fascinated me. I wondered, 'What's the truth in all this?'" That 'is' the truth about Evita, that a polarized culture created polarized myths about a polarized woman. For some she is a saint, for others the devil. For those with no concept of the polarities of Hispanic culture, she is destined to be an enigma. Unfortunately, this documentary largely overlooks this vital ingredient.

Description

Argentina offers its own image of Evita - 1997 Academy Awards/Argentine Selection - She was neither a saint nor a devil. - No woman, before or since, has possessed as much magnetism and influence as Eva "Evita" Peron. During the 1950s, she was the most powerful woman in the Americas - capturing the heart and soul of the poor, whose causes she championed until her tragic death at age 33. EVA PERON beautifully chronicles Evita's stormy, passionate life, which brought so much hope to Argentina in an age of political power struggles, bloody coups, military oppression, and economic depression.

Customer Reviews:

Evita could give Thatcher a run for her money.......2006-04-08

Evita was the polar political opposite of Margaret Thatcher but her skillful political savvy made her the most powerful woman in South America, in a country known for machismo, with far less formal education that Thatcher had. This Spanish-language version gives homegrown accounts of the nation that has been haunted by her legacy ever since.Evita was a study in contrasts, Dior dresses worn when giving donations to the poor, too much flashing of money while lambasting the rich, and being First Lady when all she could do was act. What she lacked in theatrical talent she re-directed into a power-hunger so fierce the Argentine economy is still realing from her reign.

Eva Peron immortalized yet again. Politically charged and fascinating........2005-06-27

This Argentine feature was release around the same time as Alan Parker's film version of the hit musical EVITA. For those interested in learning about Argentina's controversial first lady, I recommend both films. Desanzo's version is lower-budget and therefore not as spectacular as Parker's interpretation, but EVA PERON is alot more historically accurate and fair in it's treatment of Evita.

The film deals with the final stages of Eva Peron's life. It chronicles her bid for the vice-presidency and her illness in detail. Several other stages of Eva Peron's life are also touched upon by the use of flashbacks.

My only (minor) complaints lie with Esther Goris. Admittingly, she does resemble Evita during her final stages but when playing the younger Eva Duarte de Peron, Goris doesn't even come close. All one has to do is look at the hundreds of photo's of Eva Peron pre-1950 (before her disease) and one will be able to see the extraordinary differences in physical appearance. The real Eva's beauty was more radiant, her hair more elaborate and her body was more voluptuous. Goris is too thin, to abrasive to portray the young Evita during her earlier years as the First Lady. I usually have difficulties watching a bio-film when the leading actor does not resemble the person they are portraying. I had a similiar problem with Leonardo DiCaprio portraying Howard Hughes in THE AVIATOR.

Goris's voice and personality are also too authorative and at times, over-bearing. Granted, the real Eva Peron, according to many, was just that and Eva's voice was shrill and authorative when giving her impassioned speeches on the balcony of the Casa Rosada but during her less intense speeches such as speaking to her Descamisados over the radio, her voice was calm and peaceful and according to those who knew her best, she also had a sweet and gentle side to her. That's not really seen in this film. Eva Peron was a diamond with some rough edges, Goris is just rough around the edges.

Now that I got that out of the way, Goris does capture Evita's essence physically and vocally since, for the most part, she is portraying her during her final years and I will frankly state that her performance is moving. Like Madonna in Parker's film, Goris became Eva Peron and her passion for the role is clearly evident in her performance.

Those thinking that this Argentine version will portray Eva as a saintly deity will be quite shocked. This interpretation portrays an Eva Peron who liked to wear nice clothes and hats but had the will of a survivor. A young, strong woman who talked the talk and walked the walk and was able to change an entire nation forever due to her overwhelming fire and passion. This is a much tougher Evita than in Parker's film.

Despite my above comments, Esther Goris is outstanding in her portrayel and the production as a whole is excellent. Considering the tremendous amount of MIS-INFORMATION about the real Eva Peron on film: LITTLE MOTHER, EVITA PERON with Faye Dunaway and even the rock opera, this film is a blessing. And for those, like me, who are thirsty for the truth, we finally have a film that is pretty accurate historically and un-baised in it's treatment of it's leading lady and her legacy.

Ester Goris Shines as Evita in this Argentine Movie.......2005-04-20

I recently recieved this as part of a birthday gift after purchasing Andrew Lloyd Webber's EVITA a few months previous to it. While I found Webber's version a bit dry with substance it led me to this DVD which provided me with an understanding to how Argentina viewed their political figure.

Unlike Webber's version, the Director shows Evita in several political situations, such as meeting a woman from the Charity Association, and talking to the railroad workers when they begin a strike. Also unlike Webber's version, the director in this one concentrated solely on Eva's vice presidency which Webber short-changed during the filming of his Evita.

Ester Goris, looks impressively like the real Evita and also has the ability to show emotions very well. For example, when Peron ignores Evita going up for the vice presidency she launchs into a tirade about how she has been discriminated against all her life, and when Eva finds out about her cancer Ester calmly sits down in front of a mirror before striking it four times with her fist.

I highly recommend this movie as a resource to all Evita fans who have a project or are just curious about the life and death of Eva Peron.

Powerful portrayal of Latin America's most powerful woman.......2003-12-09

Eva Peron was born in rural Argentina in 1919. At the age of 15 she made her way to the capital, Buenos Aires, to pursue her dreams of cinema stardom. By 26 she was the first lady of the nation, becoming the liaison between the people of Argentina and her husband, Juan Peron. She presided over the creation of the Eva Peron Foundation, the first real welfare system the nation had ever seen (for the first time in Argentine history there was no inequality in health care), created entire cities where thousands of homes were given to the impoverished, pushed for legislation that benefited women (including granting women the right to vote), and challenged just about every notion Latin America had about women's roles, defying even her husband's requests that she slow down.

Argentine director Juan Carlos Desanzo has decided to focus on the years 1951-52 in Evita's life. She has decided that she would like to become the first female vice president in her country's history, the first in world history. But she has two adversaries: the oligarchy, who would be horrified to see a woman of her "common" background officially recognized; the military, who would not stand for the possibility of a female commander in the event of their president's death. Can Evita, with the wild enthusiasm of the people for her candidacy, defeat them? Will her husband support her bid? The majority of EVA PERON is devoted to posing and answering these questions.

Is this the definitive version of Evita? There is no way to know for sure. But I can assure you that the producers succeeded in their attempt to offer a counter-point to the Madonna version, to put more substance to the story. In fact, it's hard to believe the respective movies concern the same figure. Argentine actress Esther Goris brings Eva Peron to life, amazingly making human a woman who has become superhuman, an archetype, a legend, and a myth.

Customer Reviews:

An Interesting Documentary About the Life of the Legendary "Evita"........2007-02-03

"The Miracle of Eva Peron" is a rather intriguing documentary about the life and times of Argentina's Eva ("Evita") Peron, the beautiful blonde first lady of Argentina from 1946 until her tragic death from cancer in 1952 at the age of 33.

Surprisingly, the biography is somewhat sympathetic and objective and the image portrayed here is the human Eva Duarte de Peron, not the one-dimensional ego-maniac of the popular musical that bears her nickname. There are several people interviewed including a brief commentary from Eva's cousin. Other's that offer their insight are historians that try their best to portray Eva, Peron and their movement as objective as possible. One of the commentators is a bit difficult to understand due to his accent. The archival film footage is good in some instances, bad in others. The same can be said about the photographs. Considering there is a tremendous amount of photographic documentation of Evita, many of them quite striking, it is surprising to see so many blurred and unsatisfactorily produced images. With that said, there are some visually stunning pictures of the controversial blonde, especially those of her artistic period and during her "Rainbow Tour". There are 2 visual errors that I noticed. When discussing Eva during her years as an actress they show footage from one of her films "The Circus Cavalcade" ("La Cabalgata del Circo") but the actress on screen is not Evita, it is Libertad Lamarque.

Keep in mind that this documentary was originally released in 1997 under the title "Evita: Her Real Story". It's exactly the same with some minor edits. This version runs a little over an hour while the original was about 75 minutes in length. There are 2 portions that are omitted for this edition; the brief "Madonna" segment in the beginning and the last portions of the video where they focused in on Eva's embalmed corpse. Overall, it's not bad but it could have been executed much better since it lacks the polish and excitement of "A&E's" biography and even "Lifetimes Intimate Portrait: Eva Peron". It is far superior to the 1996 documentary "Evita: The Story of Eva Peron" which was respectful of Eva but was very poorly made with grainy recycled footage throughout (it was also taped in SLP, the worst possible speed as far as quality is concerned). "The Miracle of Eva Peron" is pretty detailed and far more objective than "A&E's" efforts and for this reason, it is recommended, especially for those interested in learning more about the scandalous blonde beauty that has inspired countless retellings of her short, amazing life. The DVD also has a small photo gallery that has still images taken from the documentary.

Not the best biography but definitely not the worst and at this time, it's one of only two documentaries available on DVD about Eva Peron.

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