Alborada!

My favourite telenovela is coming to an end, I think. I am sure the last time I watched it I saw the words "Ultimas Semanas" blazoned across the screen. I didn't realize that telenovelas actually end and don't go on for forty years with the same characters for ever and ever, like American soap operas.

Anyway, it's my favourite in that it is the only telenovela that I watch. It's set in the 18th century, a period of time in which people didn't talk so fast. Most of the time I watch it on mute so I get the closed captioning and read it furiously as the dialogue flies back. One good feature of this show, and it may be common to all, is that after characters A & B have an intense and impassioned discussion, and after character A leaves the room, character B will handily summarize what just happened for character C, which gives me two chances to get any kind of meaning from the exchange.

Many of the characters are related, but I don't really watch often enough to know how. I think I just figured out that two of the women characters, Hipolita, the main female love lead and mother of the born-out-of-wedlock Rafael, and Catalina, saintly and sweet, may be sisters. This is a huge break through. Plus the evil villain guy of indeterminate sexual orientation is called Diego. This is also a great clue, because now I know when they are carrying on about something and Diego's name comes up, it is something bad they are talking about. If I didn't have to watch the text whizz by, I could watch the actors' facial expressions, but I don't have that luxury.

The main male love interest, Luis, father of Rafael, is in frequent sword fights. The latest fight seems to have been mostly an excuse to get him to take off his shirt and leave it off for many episodes while he recovers. Most times when I tune in after a week or so, I find one character or another recovering from a sword fight. It was a perilous era. Luis's wife, Esperanza, whom he apparently hated, finally died a few episodes ago after pretending she was pregnant (or maybe she was but it was Diego who was the father. Possibly?) and falsely claiming to witness a vision of the Virgin Mary. She died of some sort of fever, I think. She was very, very unhappy about Luis and Hipolita, and everyone was incredibly mean to her.

Anyway, I love historical fiction. I love the way that every shot of the big palace, where a lot of the characters seem to live, always has about 20 servants sweeping and cleaning. I love it that I can understand entire phrases at a time, and that people on the show actually say things like, "Como estas? Bien y tu?" just like I learned in Spanish class. And I love it that I just discovered a very thorough blog that not only details everything that happened in each episode, but also translates the dialogue. I may just figure out what the hell is up with Juana before it all ends.

Comments

[Ms. Jane]

Wow. I'm so jealous! I should start watching one. Let me know when the next one you like starts and we can listen and learn!

General Hospital is way tedious right now.