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45 Revoluciones Television Espanola es Fabuloso |
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45 revoluciones
is set
in the early 1960s in Madrid, Spain at a time when Rock and Roll music
gave a voice to young people in many countries in the world, but also at
a time in Spain when it was ruled by a brutal and repressive dictator
General Francisco Franco. Franco would not die until 1975 and during his
dictatorship people of a gay sexual orientation were arrested, beaten
and persecuted if caught, literature was heavily censored and often
rewritten, radio and television stations broadcast what they were told
to broadcast and music was censored.
Now that you understand the setting of
45 revoluciones let us talk
about the outstanding thirteen episode series that we hope will be
renewed for another season and if you watched the series in its
entirety, yes the writers and producers did leave a window open for that
to occur with the way the story was written. If it is not renewed by
Antena 3 then perhaps Netflix will pick up the rights. It has done well
with other Spanish productions such as
Alta Mar (High Seas) and
Las Chicas Del Cable (Cable
Girls).
There are so many good acting performances in
45 revoluciones by the stars
of the show and by the entire supporting cast that it will not be
possible to mention everyone. Never in recent memory has a supporting
cast put in as strong of a performance as this one.
The story begins with a young, great looking young man by the name of
Rober (played by Carlos Cuevas) hijacking the stage at a venue called
Price, before he is uncermoniously removed from the venue. A failed
record label A & R man and manager by the name of Guillermo Rojas (Iván
Marcos) happens to be in the venue that night and realizes there is
something special about Rober. Guillermo spots a young woman smiling and
dancing to the music and he would later learn her name is Maribel Campoy
played by Guiomar Peurta. We are not going to tell you how these three
meet and how they decide to join forces, but we will say this together
they form the team at a new record label that is launched called Futura.
It would be impossible in this space to name all of the writers who
contributed to the episodes, so collectively we will say to you thank
you for giving us such great storylines, such good character development
and people and cirumstances and social issues that are real and to which
we can relate. Maribel has a double fight on her hands, she is trying to make her mark in the male dominated music industry, but from the beginning Guillermo supports her and he makes sure everyone understands that this a team and that he cannot do it without her and without Rober. Rober has a secret, a very, very serious health issue and he also falls in love with Maribel. Guillermo has his demons, a marriage that failed and alcohol. These three characters are pursuing their dreams and the performances of Peurta, Marcos and Cuevas at times are riveting. There are times when you will laugh, when you will cry and when you will think of the characters how can you be so dumb? Yet, you will fall in love with Rober, Maribel and Guillermo (although at first you might just think he is a jerk). You will fall in love with them, because under the direction of David Pinillos and Gustavo Ron these three have become as authentic, as the people that you have encountered at sometime during your life.
Ignacio (Vito Sanz), the writer of Rober’s songs is a broken gay man,
who must hide his sexual orientation if he does not want to be arrested.
He fluctuates between being happy that his songs are seeing the light of
day and experiencing major anxiety attacks. Later in the series you will
learn of two women who also become in a romantically (and we will not
say more, so we do not spoil this for you.) We will say this however,
thank you to the creators of this series Ramón Campos and Gema R. Neira,
as well as executive producers Sonia Martinez and Teresa Fernández (as
well as Ramón Campos) for not being afraid to tackle serious social
issues like alcholism, gay rights and women’s rights. You accomplished
this not in a sensational manner, but by having vision and allowing your
screenwriters to create realistic circumstances, dialogue, struggles,
heartbreak and triumphs that should provoke meaningful conversation and
hopefully change.
It is a shame that we can only highlight a few members of the supporting
cast or we would be here all day, so as we say in Spanish vamos (come on
or let’s go). Silvana Navas (as Nines) you made a big fan of us and we
can only hope that we are lucky enough to watch your performances for
years to come when Riveting Riffs Magazine relocates from North America
to Madrid, Spain in mid 2020 (fingers crossed). There is a phrase in
English, once bitten, twice shy and it means someone who has been hurt
in life is fearful of making the same mistake again. Anyone who has ever
felt that way will completely understand the Nines that you created on
screen.
Israel Elejalde
(as Zabala) and Carmen Gutiérrez Ibáñez (Maribel’s mother) we want to
give both of you hell and tell you to grow up, but then we remember it
is your characters we are talking to and not you, which means you did an
outstanding job of convincing us.
Kimberley Tell you transitioned petulant actress Fanny into singer Fanny
who actually turns out to be a really nice person. We are going to go
listen to the new song you released. Yes folks in real life Kimberley
Tell just released a song on Spotify, so go give it a listen. It is
called “Lo Que No Me Dices.” In English the title is “What You Don’t
Tell Me.”
We are pretty sure that between his fabulous acting and how handsome he
is that actor Eduald Font who portrayed Diego Salinas is going to win a
lot of fans worldwide with his performance.
If you are reading this review do yourself a favor and go watch
45 revoluciones on Netflix. If
you are forty years of age or older, we suggest you watch it with a
person university and college age. It might answer a lot of questions
for you and we are smiling as we write that. We have only touched on
some of the issues, but a lot of the issues that existed in this
fictional account of Spain in the early 1960s, sadly still exist today
in many countries and diverse societies.
One final note,
please watch it with the original Spanish dialogue and if you do not
understand Spanish just watch it with the English subtitles. You will
never fully appreciate an actor or actress, no matter what language they
are speaking unless you listen to them in the languge in which they
performed.
This review is
dedicated to the memory of my son Kent, who died March 1, 2003, far too
early at the age of 18 when his heart stopped from an undetected heart
problem. He would have loved the characters of Mirabel, Rober and
Guillermo.
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Riveting
Riffs Magazine does not write a lot of reviews these days, although
those were our roots as an entertainment, fashion and visual arts
publication. We now focus on interviews. Having said all of that when
45 revoluciones, which first
was broadcast on Antena 3 (television) in Spain in the spring of 2019
appeared on Netflix recently, what began as a curiosity turned into a
love affair between this writer and yet another fabulous production from
Spain. 