Close the boundaries, more here at the end

By: Armando Núñez Chiong

Un ejercicio de crítica a la recién finalizada novela Más allá del límite, transmitida por Cubavisión

Sixty chapters seen from Beyond the Limit (eighty-five in total) multiply the chances that some trials now written about cubavision’s soap opera will be nullified, denied, towards the end. But they also offer enough elements to venture generalizations that, in the end, are always a risk, a more or less reasoned exercise of subjectivity.
It is clear, for example, that the direction of Miguel Brito and Rafael Ruiz conceived a work of discrete, conventional technical invoice, although sometimes photography delivers some other interesting plane, or highlights the functionality of incidental music in some scenes.
It is in the script of Yoel Monsoon – who had emigration in several of its forms as the center of the matter – that we should seek the most accomplished of the work, even if not everything has been well resolved. There is, first of all, topicality, and quite plausibility, and that always attracts. The scale of problems addressed is broad, and while not everyone has emerged with optimal strength or at the right time, they make delivery interesting. This is where the original sin is going: a more careful design in the organization and hierarchy of subtramas would have avoided that effect of confusion that the first chapters seem to have left behind.
Take, for example, the facts related to human trafficking (as sensitive as it is timely, by the way). They generate suspense, surprised by the characters involved, but have been revealed mostly towards the second half of the soap opera. Equally, well advanced the story was that it became known about Beatrice’s bond with the leading family, and her romance with Ulysses.
Both subtramas have been or remain promising letters, but contrast with some initial gloating around Mauritius, the so-called prodigal son with his manipulative escalation of lies, or the Beatrice’s own crisis with her initial partner.
Not that these latter examples, among the many who prevailed at first, have resented the pace too much. It can be said that interest has been maintained, if the infallible reiterations and expendable scenes are neglected. But some events may have been dosed, hinted at, or triggered before.
Among the performances stands out the Beatrice of Laura Moras, very successful in the management of vulgarity. Part of a stereotype that nuances with intelligence, to conceive of a hard and sensitive, insolent and fragile woman. Ophelia Nunez gives a complex, mesurized but convincing old lady with her mistakes and sentimental swings. All the time he leaves the certainty that he understands his character, quite disconcerting at times. And the actress’ work could be described as anything but predictable or naive.

Más-allá-del-limite-colectivo
Elenco de la novela “Más allá del límite”

Alejandro Cuervo gets with Vladimir one of the best moments of his career. Ulyk Anello (Ulysses) and Carlos Alberto Méndez (Yoenis) were angry about him. Perverse the first, noble the latter, classify in that area standardized characters (positive or negative) that are always a challenge for those who embody them, first of all because they are usually too flat. They take advantage of the nods left by the script, as Amada Morado does with her prejudiced and bigoted grandmother… but Grandma after all.
Xavier Chao (Sandor) and Frank Mora (Karel) also departed from simplistic schemes, and, in the case of the latter, appealed to sound contentions, without evading a more or less realistic, plausible projection of the personality he decided to assume. It knows how to be more or less “obvious,” depending on the situation.
By the way, it’s probably in that sub-line where some “cuts” that, however abrupt, seem to have been decisions made when there was no time to correct scripts, and even recordings, are most evident. However, what should have been avoided, which are those “capsules” where mercy is almost imploded, is repeated over and over again. That doesn’t seem to be the way, if it’s intended to change certain behaviors. Much more effective were the treatment of race or prejudice around seniority.
One wonders whether these so-called “cuts” are not related, too, to the gaps that arise around the most controversial point: Aldo (Enrique Bueno), a professor whose actions denote absolute unethicalness. There’s fabric here to cut through. At some point he circulated on the networks that because of this conflict there were difficulties for Beyond… would be on the air sooner. A sociological assessment of the phenomenon should be attempted, after research, from another journalistic genre, but not in a commentary like this. The truth is that, whether or not it resembles reality (for the fact that the river sounds…) it should be remembered that rough matters of the youth field, such as those of Double Play (Rudy Mora, 2002) or the first story of The Hidden Face of the Moon (Rafael González…, 2005), ended up being a timely alarm, whether or not the problems presented could be solved.
Here, it is sufficient to greet the fact that we are seeing it, for the courage and honesty that this entails, to deplore frauds like those presented, and to remember that, reflecting reality or not, it is a work of fiction.
And the latter is mentioned because, if Julia (Mirtha Lidia Pedro) and Alicia (Gretel Cazón) are also taken into account, the two teachers who fail to place their sentimental life on the sidelines of work – education – without being the greatest focus of interest, nor having the necessary “counterweights” here – receives several bursts. And say again: there is talk of fiction and anecdotal balance that must give impartiality to history.
The presence of corrupt jurists becomes like the icing on the cake that shows undesirable sides of everyday life. It is funny to imagine how at least part of the guild will react, if when Mikel Junior, that lawyer played by Leonardo Benitez in Beats Shared (Consuelo Ramírez and Rafael Ruiz, 2016) showed himself self-sufficient until bragging, he generated repeated manifestations of nonconformity…
There are dialogues that at times needed their good pruning, among other things from common places. Perhaps in this respect the most notorious were some comments (kind of counterproductive tourist slogans) of Adrián, colorless character who, like Walter, wasted the well-known possibilities of Carlos Solar and Delvis Fernández. Everything seems to indicate that the latter will gain importance until the end; we’ll have to see how the actor solves it.
The distribution of Beyond the Limit is extensive, as much as the problems it poses are varied. Surely there are unforgivable absences in this hasty reading (it is inevitable, always for reasons of space and composition, even if the editor himself finds it uncomfortable), but it is necessary to refer, collectively, to the good performance of the young (Claudia Tomás, Carolina Cué, Yasmani Beltrán…), because everyone fights alongside the most experienced. That and the more positive aspects of the script animate, as well as stimulate the continuity of the dramatized serials in terms of credibility and verism. We will see what happens to the endings that, as the premises are raised at this stage, promise to be animated, although it should not be forgotten that, for better or worse, as baseball commentators say: “the game is not over until it’s over.” Ω

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