Friday, September 12, 2008
Doña Bárbara - Thurs., Sept. 11: Orestes gets a Darwin award; Marisela finds out the truth about DB and Santos
Lorenzo witnesses Antonio telling Cecilia that he loves her.
Lorenzo calls her shameless and says that he will kill Antonio.
Orestes dies.
Santos asks the doctor if Orestes could have been poisoned and the doctor says that is a possible explanation of Orestes' symptoms. Santos remembers that Orestes was drinking from a bottle that BP had.
Popular opinion has DB responsible for Orestes' death but Santos doesn't want to believe.
Lorenzo tells Cecilia that he can't understand how an educated, refined woman could fall for a nobody ('don nadie') like Antonio. Lorenzo says that Cecilia is a victim and that Antonio is taking advantage of an old maid ('pobre solterona'). Antonio accuses Lorenzo of being bitter and envious. He is reaping what he sowed when he abandoned Cecilia to go after DB. Cecilia calls a plague on their houses and runs away.
The beauty pageant is called off.
Marisela says that she would have won if Orestes hadn't died and nasty Luisana says that she couldn't win a beauty contest on her best day and that she looks pathetic in her costume.
Marisela does not really understand the word,'pathetic,' ('patética') which sort of sounds like the Spanish word for the leg of an animal, 'pata.' She says to Luisana, "Who are you to talk about 'pathetic' with those long skinny legs you have, 'heron legs!'" ('quién habla de patética con esas patas flacas y largas que tiene, ¡patas de garza!').
Santos raises his suspicions about the bottle Orestes drank from before he died but DB calls his bluff and they both drink from the bottle.
At dinner at Altamira, Luisana asks Santos how it feels to be the lover of a murderer. Marisela is listening. She comes in and tells Luisana that Santos would never sleep with DB. Marisela says that she will make Luisana pay for what she said about Santos.
Marisela's idea of payback is to put an iguana in Luisana's bed.
But then she sees Santos going out very early. She goes to El Miedo and finds that DB has gone out also. Then she spies on them having sex in the waterhole ('pozo') and her heart is broken.
Cecilia is lost in despair about whether she can find love but then all the village folk come to help fix up the school and she cheers up.
Lorenzo catches a ternera leaving a bottle in his room.
Labels: barbara
Doña Bárbara is based on a novel of the same name by Venezuelan author Rómulo Gallegos, first published in 1929.
According to Wikipedia, "This regionalist novel deals with the confrontation between civilization and the barbaric aspects of the rural environment and its inhabitants.
The rural environment is the Llanos, the plains of southern Venezuela that goes into Colombia where this is being filemd. The characters in the novel, also from Wikipedia:
"Santos Luzardo: represents civilization and progress. He is an advanced plainsman and, at the same time, a graduate lawyer of the Central University of Venezuela. Luzardo is a man of great psychological depth and essentially good.
Doña Bárbara: representing barbarism, is Luzardo's antithesis; she is arbitrary, violent, cunning and whimsical. However, in her there is not an absolute absence of feelings, which are intensely awakened by Santos Luzardo. Her contradictory manners reflect the wild behavior of her environment. Her behaviour is a reaction to the trauma she suffered in her childhood, victim of high levels of abuse.
Marisela: represents good raw material that civilization can mold. Born from a loveless union she is rescued from a degraded condition by Santos Luzardo.
Lorenzo Barquero: Orphan whose future was destroyed by misfortune and vice.
Míster Danger: represents the contempt foreigners harbor toward Venezuelans. He is Doña Bárbara's accomplice.
Ño Pernalete: represents, with "Mujiquita", the country's political incompetence and decadence and at the same time the depressing society caused by political leaders.
Juan Primito: represents superstition and the pagan beliefs of the plainsmen."
I haven't read the novel but the novela is basically following along with these themes.
Santos is the main hero and DB is the main villian and it's pretty clear that Santos will end up with Marisela.
There seems to be more back and forth between Univision and Telemundo recently. Victoria Ruffo just finished up Victoria on Telemundo, and she had been forever with Univision. The chisme is that, in the past, if they went to Telemundo for a role they were dead to Univision after that. I think they reached some kind of accord that also involved TM being able to show their novelas in Mexico, which they formerly couldn't do. But I'm not sure if this is just conjecture I read or if it's true. Maybe once actors move to TM they still cannot be in Univision novelas
This is a really interesting TN with some different themes running through it. I actually like DB and feel so much of her motivation is driven by her suffering such abuse earlier. Marisela is cute and although an uncivilized demeanor, she would be great with a young suitor that is not involved passionately with her mother. We will see though.
Technically, the actresses don't work for Univison, but for Televisa, the largest network in Mexico. Univision then airs the TNs, usually a few months after they start in Mexico. Having said that, contracts run out and and people sign with a different network (Arturo Peniche used to be with Televisa, but is now with Telemundo). There are also free agents (I think someone mentioned that Jaime Camil is a free agent, though he tends to work with Televisa). I got the impression that both Ruffo and Gonzalez have changed networks, but am not entirely sure. Marlene Favela has worked with both, so I think she's a free agent. There are also other networks out there. Back when they had "Mentiras y Verdades," Fernando Ciangeretti mentioned he signed a contract with TV Azteca (another Mexican network) because Televisa wasn't using him much, and a guy's gotta work!
As for the incest issue, I too am a little troubled, and hope it doesn't end so, but DB looks harder and harder to redeem. For what it's worth, they are slightly distant relatives. Santos and Lorenzo (Mari's dad) are first cousins, but I think they're dad's where only half brothers (they had different last names, and it was clear it was on their father's side). This would make Mari Santos' second cousin. Still a little too close to incest for my taste, but only time will tell. There is no guarantee that the ending in the TN will be the same as the book, but we can wait to hear from the person who's reading it what it was there.
I was rooting for DB early on, hoping that she could change, heal and overcome her tragic past. Her treatment of Marisela was unpardonable and her lack of remorse didn't bode well in her lackluster attempt to 'change' into a civilized person to gain Santos love.
Balbino grosses me out with the way he licks his chops, with that tongue sticking out...
jb
jb
What I don't understand is whether Dona Barbara is actually Marisela's mother.If so, can someone explain?? nj sue
Barbarita, as she was known then, worked on a riverboat with her father and Eustaquia who raised her and her boyfriend, Asdrúbal. One night, the rest of the crew mutinied, killed the father, the boyfriend and gang raped Barbara. Eustaquia rescued her from the rapists and when she got better, she ran a small boat with trade goods on the river. She was getting tired of that when she met Lorenzo Barquero, the owner of La Barquereña hacienda. He was on the rebound after his true love, Cecilia, left the Llanos (with Santos) after Santos' father killed his other son and then himself. She married Lorenzo for economic security and got pregnant with Marisela. She didn't want the baby and never took care of her. When Marisela was about 3 or 4, Barbara managed to get control of La Barquereña using money she borrowed from Orestes Prieto's father. She threw Lorenzo and Marisela out of the Hacienda, renamed it El Miedo and became the DB that we know today. Marisela and Lorenzo, who is an alcoholic, lived in a cabin called La Chusmita until Santos returned to Altamira and brought them back to the big house. So there has never been any maternal relationship between Marisela and DB.
I wouldnt want to see a man sleep with the mom and than with the daughter.
IF DB doesn't stay with santos than it sucks he has to make her better
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