Asakiyume mita

These days we're watching two Spanish-language shows on Netflix. One is La Reina del Flow (The Queen of Flow), an 82-episode-long revenge tale that we're only 30 episodes into. Talented teen lyricist Yeimi Montoya is invited by her best pal, Juancho, to join Soul and Bass, a duo consisting of Juancho and another teen, Charly Cruz, whom Yeimi has a huge crush on, but who has never even noticed her. (Juancho, in turn, loves Yeimi, but she only thinks of him as a friend.) All three of them are barrio kids on the outskirts of Medellín, but Charlie has a pretty face, and Soul and Bass has a good tunes--with Yeimi's lyrics they might just get a recording deal. Unfortunately Charly is a self-absorbed narcissist with a crime lord for an uncle.

We need to spend a moment on the uncle, Manín. He is likely to have killed Charly's dad (though at episode 30, that's still not certain) in order to put the moves on Charly's mom, who eventually does acquiesce and marry him. He's ordered Yeimi's bakery-running parents killed when they're unable to make a protection payment. He slouches everywhere and is usually eating something, or drinking.

Manín has been in the habit of strong-arming Charly into doing jobs for him, and in one of those jobs, he ends up killing someone--and Yeimi witnesses it. She insists Charly turn himself in, but *that* certainly isn't happening--instead Charly asks his uncle for help, and next thing you know, Yeimi is in prison in the United States for acting as a drug mule (Charly having planted drugs on her when they head to New York to meet a producer). Charly also steals her notebook of lyrics, so he can keep on creating hit songs. Oh, and he seduced her, so she gives birth in prison and then gives the baby to her grandmother--but Manín kills the grandmother and steals the baby, because Charly's mom--now Manín's wife--wants another baby. He doesn't say anything about the baby's parentage, so now that child, who's actually Charly's son, is being raised as Charly's brother. The same actor plays this child, Erik, and young-Charly (glasses and a different hair style distinguishing them).

Got the picture? So 17 years later, when a DEA agent offers Yeimi a chance to get out of prison if she helps to catch the uncle, she agrees, reasoning that she can use this chance to get revenge on Charly, who's now the successful reggaeton star Charly Flow,** with a beautiful wife and daughter. In the guise of Tammy Andrade, music producer and talent scout, she intends to take away from Charly everything that he's taken away from her.

So... you sympathize with her, and Charly really is a self-involved asshole. But the story takes you into the lives of Charly's wife and daughter, too, and it's clear that Yeimi's mission is going to have profound collateral damage. Juancho is still around, running a recording studio, and when Tammy reveals that she's actually Yeimi, he urges her to get the ultimate revenge, which is to lead a happy life and to forget about revenge. So the show has this tension, because on the one hand it invites you in for vengeful wish fulfillment, but on the other hand, it highlights the problems with this. But if you begin to truly think it's a problem, then you can't root for Yeimi wholeheartedly. Or maybe at all?

I'm not a huge fan of how the actress who plays grow-up Yeimi portrays her--but it's probably in part down to the writing and the directing. I'm hoping they'll add something to enrich her character. I suspect they will--the trailer shows her recording her own songs, and that hasn't happened yet, and we still have 52 episodes to fill. Right now I have more sympathy for Charly's wife, whom we're meant, I think, to see as self-absorbed the same way Charly is, but who's struggling to raise their daughter and put together a life for herself ... she feels more three-dimensional to me that Yeimi.

The other Spanish-language show we're watching is Frontera Verde, a *completely* different type of show, which takes place in the Amazon--but I'll talk about that another time.

Trailer for Reina del Flow

**Based visually on Colombian reggaeton star Maluma:

grown-up Charly


Maluma


... ughh, and while I don't usually care about spoilers, in looking for those images I've inadvertently seen one I sort of do care about.

The ending of this show was intensely satisfying and mainly (maybe not entirely) realistic. Thinking back over the entire story arc and all the characters, I do have a few criticisms, but mainly so much love and so much admiration for the storycraft and the character development. It would be an excellent show to use with kids to get them thinking about how characters grow and change (and why this is important) and what motivations are--but beyond all that, it's so engaging!

My main criticism was that the main conflict for Belky, the protagonist, gets sorted out three-fourths of the way through the show, and then, rather than simply focusing on remaining conflicts/difficulties, which are not as high-color but very important (things about how she relates with her boyfriend and her family--that sort of thing), a whole new existential threat is introduced, one that's kind of cheap and tired compared with everything else in the show. Furthermore, it involves Belky, who's generally wary and mistrustful, trusting a simply odious character, and while the show's at pains to show how that character wins her trust, it still just doesn't seem likely. And, it's very hard to focus on the very interesting stories of the side characters when there's this existential threat hanging over Belky. I would have been happier without that storyline, honestly.

BUT STILL. The remaining storylines develop the main supporting characters wonderfully. People make bad decisions for good reasons and then have to extricate themselves. People have to take emotional risks, and it isn't easy. There are lots of excellent heart-to-heart conversations.

And the show is really progressive, too: there's a young lawyer who's wheelchair bound who gets to be heroic and who gets a happily ever after: he's just the right person for the woman he ends up with. There's a gay guy who's portrayed as an accomplished, brave, smart person, who's always wanted to be a father and is able to co-parent with a single mother, while maintaining his romantic life separately. Belky has a moving conversation with the older of her two younger sisters about becoming sexually active and making it be about her choice and not something she's pressured into. Public, pressureful marriage proposals and apologies are shown to be NOT A GOOD IDEA.

And more and more--but this is enough for now. Gotta get back to the day's tasks.

I was searching for something good to watch in Spanish on Netflix and had the amazing good fortune to discover LA NIÑA, a 86-episode Colombian telenovela from 2016.


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It's about a girl who was kidnapped by guerrillas as a child (more accurately, as a tiny child of like eight, she nobly asked the guerrillas to take her rather than her epileptic brother--so they do) but who gets demobilized and is now trying to reintegrate into society. Opportunistic former comrades are out to get her because they believe she knows where their commander hid a huge stash of cash, and a corrupt army colonel is out to get her because she was a victim of his and might expose him.* But from the very first, she has the support of brave Dr. Tatiana, a psychologist working for the Reintegration Program, and Father Rivas,** a priest who also helps reintegrate former guerrillas and paramilitaries. It's Father Rivas who suggests, after she demonstrates some impressive quick thinking and skills in that direction, that she consider becoming a doctor, and from about episode 3 onward, that's what she's embarked on: training to become a doctor.

Belky--the main character, whom we first meet as "Alias Sara"


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( And here's a former guerrilla who may have been one of the inspirations for La Niña )

Dr. Tatiana and Fr. Rivas


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And here's Manuel: he was sold by his father to the paramilitaries--"to make a man of him," when really what he likes to do is cook. He's been demobilized too. I suspect these two are destined for each other--they become good friends in the reformatory in the first couple of episodes-- but this is a telenovela, and currently there's some distance between them.


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Here's a group shot:


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In the upper lefthand corner, you can see two of Belky's classmates in the medical program, one on each side of her. That's Victor on the left, a super sweet guy who helped her and her father get set up selling vegetables when they first arrived in Bogotá. And that's Santiago on the right. He's the wealthy son of a doctor and is quite smitten by Belky. The reason they're both side-eying her in that picture is because she's in tears as she describes the cause of death of a woman. The threatening-looking man in the center is Col. Barragán.

One of the reasons I love this show is that all the major characters, bar none, have things about them that make you take an interest in them. Col. Barragán, for instance, is an awful man--but he really cares about his daughter and sticks up for her when his wife tries to pressure the girl about her weight. The daughter is a really interesting character, though so far she hasn't received much screen time. She lends Belky a pencil before an exam, and she's friendly and somewhat lonely. She loves her dad--doesn't realize that he's done monstrous things. Then there's Natalia--she seems to be all sharp edges and nasty words, but at one point you see her interacting with a child in a clinic sensitively and empathetically, and while she plays the part of a rich, privileged woman, in fact she, her mother, and her daughter can barely make ends meet.

Maria Luisa, Col. Barragán's daughter

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Natalia

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Oh, and here's Julie, the pampered, spoiled daughter of the dean of the medical program. Victor announces to Belky on first seeing Julie that she's the woman he's going to marry--never mind that Victor's the son of a farmer. His confidence is charming rather than offputting--he's so good natured, kind, and perceptive about people; he consistently manages to bring out the best in others.


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Especially in the early episodes, you get a lot of flashbacks to Belky's life with the guerrillas. There are two kids who portray her when she's young--and it turns out these two are sisters. Helps with continuity of looks!


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We're on episode 27 of 86, so we still have a lot of ground to cover, but so far I really recommend this show.

*TW for flashback to scenes of rape (not graphic; suggested) and torture (also not graphic)
**Such a treat to see a priest who's portrayed as a good man, hardworking and ordinary--in a good way: another person working for human rights and a better future.