Although fortunately in Cuba serial audiovisules keep distance from certain banalizing procedures and schemes, the truth and known is that in the telenovela there are a series of cannons and stereotypes that some of our performers use with more or less fortune, inso as they constitute established reception patterns, so be they unconsciously, by tele-audience.
Want it or not, the telenovela is a mass product, and the playful desire (intrigue, suspense, divertimento…) is a guarantor that any of the other functions entrusted to it are fulfilled. Elsewhere, production houses require this to happen, especially since it is a guarantee of profit and survival.
Ignoring reception habits can lead to incomprehension, indifference and even rejection. Another thing is to transgress conscientiously, which in these cases involves prior study, novelty and freshness to overcome “worn” mechanisms or simply very trite paths, provided that in the end they are well received by “the respectable”.
It appears that Cross-Lives got the approval of a non-despicable part of the public, although only the relevant investigations should have an accurate idea about it. And it is curious, because both the writer and the filmmaker dared to take risks that may have proved too transgressive or, at the very least, indifferent with dramaturgical springs and proven formulas.
Thus, for example, antagonisms did not start from more or less intense or hyperbolized passions, related to the classic archetypes of positive-negative characters, but from very human errors, almost all amended. Overall, there was no emphasis on psychological strokes. Note that towards the end conflicts, almost all of them, rather than crashing were diluted, which found no relief in the form, also predominant – not absolutely uniform – in which the actors conceived their characters.
It is curious, because in the realization team he was, this time in charge of the direction of actors, Fernando Hechavarría, with all that his name implies of good experience and proven talent. Perhaps it was allowed to propose a way of acting intentionally discreet, leisurely, which he wanted more to insinuate than to assume with the intensity that usually prevails in that type of work, to achieve subtleties not necessarily well appreciated by all.
Overall, the level of performance showed no notable downs and downs. What we are trying to say here is that, in addition to being very calm, there were too many similar characters, from the same dramaturgical origin. If something works in the soap opera it is the presence of strong characters, even unconventional. Maybe this boy was a little (just a bit) discolo, or that other something introverted, and that girl went fragile and this gentleman showed a little (just a little) more genius. But in the end, there was a lack of strength, individuality, verve. Even the young man who tries to intimate with the bride is not “saved” in the end for reasons that are not well understood, because violence did not show, and repentance did.
They were several “love chains” raised, which could develop more, crediblely and potentially interestingly, especially if the script had not been allowed so many “plateaus” in the event, which prevented agility to development, sometimes as slow as Mark to decide to amend his will (fifteen years!) and to do justice to his youngest daughter, the result of which during all that time had been his legitimate marriage Official.
Of course, reconciliation and repentance are fine, as are the nuances that ultimately characterize us as human beings susceptible to mistakes and redemptions. But in any case it is about conceiving them with credibility and, in a soap opera, with tricks that maintain interest. It is not advisable to speculate that he believes, for perhaps those same conflicts, stripped of the expendable, would have been an excellent starting point for a series that condensed in fewer chapters what was valuable in the original idea.
The music of Alejandro Falcón, atypical in this type of audiovisual, was a bold and functional solution, well imbricated in the plot. And the technical team achieved a dignified, coherent work, very well coupled to that mesura that, in the exercise of its fullest “creative sovereignty”, seems to have been deliberately sought by both director Heiking Hernández and screenwriter Yamila Suarez, two young men who, above all, have in their favor, with Cross lives, the merit of having tried to distance therself from conventionalisms and easy ways , telenovelerously speaking. If one thing is clear, it’s that they both knew where they wanted to go and how.
The question would be, even for those who sign these lines, to determine whether they actually bombed vulnerable and subplaceable areas, or lined artillery against the foundations, even for the ever-laudable purpose of preserving the building. Ω
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