Reviews

Rafaela was a good novela, but it had the potential of being an excellent novela if only the production team kept some things into consideration. This is an adaptation of a Venezuelan telenovela by the same name produced in 1977. Rafaela is a young graduate doctor from a poor background who comes to the hospital owned by her biological father Rafael to seek a job as a doctor. Rafael abandoned Rafaela's mother when she was pregnant, and Rafaela wants nothing to do with her father. At the hospital she meets Dr Jose Maria, a handsome chauvinistic doctor and womanizer with whom Rafaela will later fall in love with. But there are elements that want to separate them like Morelia, Rafael's high-society wife who is concerned with the scandal that will ruin their reputation about her husband's illegitimate daughter & Mireya, Jose Maria's wife who comes back into his life to manipulate him.

The adaptation team could have done a better job at the story by keeping the essentials of the old script & then adapting it to modern times because at the beginning, they tried too much to stick to the old script with stuff that didn't not make sense in today's world (eg Caridad's ignorance & illiteracy). Also, to show that Rafaela was born in poverty, they could have placed her family home in a barrio/vencindad instead of some shack near the mountains. But the writers started to improve on the writing (slightly) when the ratings in Mexico began dropping and decided to deviate a little from the original script (eg in the original Rafaela became pregnant from Jose Maria, and this wouldn't make sense considering that she is a brilliant doctor with knowledge of using contraceptives, etc). But the novela did an excellent job of showing a hospital set-up, using medical terms, therefore making it very realistic.

The cast was excellent, especially Venezuelan actress Scarlet Ortiz as Rafaela, since this was her official Mexican debut in Televisa. I do hope that she can be selected as the protagonist in other future Televisa novelas. However, I didn't like the casting of Jorge Poza as Jose Maria because he did not fit perfectly into the role. The producers could have selected another actor like Gabriel Soto or Fernando Colugna to play the role of Jose Maria, as they would have had great chemistry with Ortiz. Even the actor who later came as Rafaela's secondary love interest would have been a good choice for Jose Maria rather than Poza.

Sometimes, period pieces can be repetitive and badly executed, especially in terms of the settings, costumes, and storyline. However, Mysteries of Lisbon is quite the exception. In the first place, the title is catchy, and its set in Europe, so you are most certainly assured that this is going to be a wonderful thrill.

Adapted from the 1854 Portuguese novel by Camilo Castelo Branco, the story involves several characters, most of them of aristocratic lineage, high nobility. The characters include a jealous countess who follows her lover across Europe, a priest, a young orphan, a reformed crook who becomes a successful merchant, among others.

Joao is an orphan boy who doesn't know his parents, and the only father figure he knows is Father Dinis, the priest at the boarding school where he is staying. When he finally learns who his mother is, the hapless Angela de Lima, Countess of Santa Barbara, the story commences into a beautifully created intricate web where all the characters are related to each other or have come across each other in one point or another.

The movie is quite long, around 4 hrs 20 minutes, but the pacing is simply well done so that the story moves at a quick pace without any unnecessary pauses. the setting and the mise-en-scene is quite wonderfully done, especially the use of the miniature theater that is used to introduce different set of characters.

One of the themes that stood out here is how the nobility, despite the privileges of their titles, wealth and magnificent mansions, are quite miserable. For instance, the Countess of Santa Barbara had an impossible love, and she was forced to give up her child and marry a man who mistreated her through out the duration of their marriage. And when she finally meets him, she only gets to spend a little time with him before she decides to enter a convent. So do the rest of the aristocratic characters that are revealed later on.

It is truly unfortunate that Raul Ruiz passed away, because Mysteries of Lisbon shows the mark of a true film-maker who uses film as a work of art that is well directed, well shot and well produced.

This is indeed a magnificent and brilliant film.

Alma Indomable, from Venevision international, was a basic telenovela with the usual telenovela plot twists. The story was actually pretty good, but they could have made it better if they just considered and corrected some of the plot elements and improved on the setting.

The story takes place in an unnamed town(something designed to make the story appeal to the international audience) in a sort of countryside hacienda setting where the main protagonist, Alma (Scarlet Ortiz), comes to the hacienda Las Brisas where her true origins are revealed. But there are villains in this place who do not want to see her happy with the ranch foreman, Juan Pablo (Jose Angel Llamas).

I think that the producers should have tried to use more exterior shots of Southern Florida where many ranches are situated. The story was supposedly taking place in a ranch setting, but you never get to see the actual horses, cows etc or the plush countryside with the fruit trees where Alma went to steal fruits. Thus, the setting itself makes the story unrealistic. Venevision- Miami should have considered filming this in Venezuela, where there are actual haciendas where they could utilize the plush countryside setting. But here, no hacienda business took place (although they attempted to pull it off with a horse everyone used, a few trees, a river,a cow and a cave).

Also, the shots were always done in the same place, in the same position. For example, the mansions where the rich people lived were not fully utilized.Then, some of the plot elements could have been modified to make the story make more sense, such as the fact that Alma never went to school. They could have even added more extras so that the story actually looks like it is taking place in a countryside town with the colonial buildings, the local town canteena, like Mexican novelas such as Mi Pecado, Soy tu Duena and Abismo de Pasion.

Some plot elements that could have improved the story include an actual ranch setting where you could see workers in the farms or the characters walking around and exploring the ranch as the story moves on.

Scarlet Ortiz her acted well, but she always has the same look in her novelas. She could have at least dyed her hair to another color and styled her hair to make it have more curls. Lilibeth Morillo played an excellent villain here.

If some of the plot elements (like making Alma a farm worker instead of some savage girl, her grandmother being a voodoo spiritualist instead of some wacky nut-job, removing the whole modeling agency bit) could be changed and some of the settings improved on, especially making it look more like a South American hacienda, then this novela would have been really good and even more entertaining.