#sdl 526

[mrsdaphnefielding]

#526

Marta, owning Gabriel in the office that he thinks is his but that this scene stages as actually hers.

Fantastic performance where several choices come together:

First, Costuming keeps that "Lone Warrior(ess) of Justice" as a beacon of light intact by continuing to put Marta in that off-white silk kimono blouse that calls up associative parallels of honor, fights and the heroic: from Samurai aesthetics to their derivates in Morpheus-trains-Neo in Matrix to Karate Kid.

On performance levels, Belmonte plays off the staged tantrum for Gabriel (as the villain) with a Dietrich-esque level of reduction: there is barely any movement, not even facial movement (compare this, eg. to the prowl and elevated tone she used in the S2 finale when she last put Gabriel in his place in this office before swaggering out and getting the Hero Walk with dynamic camera movement).

This is unusal for a genre that banks so much on affective spill-it-all, but the power here really comes from containment: this is the pillar of the company, degrading the stomping rumpelstiltskin that is Gabriel simply by not engaging.

There is minimal head tilt (whereas that cants are usually prominent in women characters in arguments, as a classic appeasement move), minimal eyebrow rise, for the most part no parted lips, and absolutely no moving around (also how that blouse is tailored to her shoulders should be illegal):

Even the smirk at her opponent's lose of composure is all the more effective because it is minimal (okay, minimal tilt of jaw. But again: minimal)

When the camera pans out and Marta as the heroine is propped up by Cloe's admiring gaze, she still remains standing motionless:

And then the weight goes into the single gesture - the mandated order from Paris that likely wouldn't need a paper carried in, but it is such a great move: Congratulations, here's the your Certificate of Lacking Professionalism, signed by yourself.

(also such a boss move when Gabriel stands up and demands, "What did I say, Marta? What did I say?" and she doesn't even engage, so he has to provide the answer himself, "Over my dead body!" - yeah, I think we could arrange that.)

Another boss move: Marta walking out, but even while being yelled at, she will make time for the chivalrous gesture of holding the door for another woman (even if said woman is her recent ex, because Marta has principles, and her confident, unhasty walk - not an open swagger but... - broadcasts that she is very aware of it. As are we, Marta. As are we.)

[mrsdaphnefielding]

#526 - honorable mentions (4)

Proof that the de la Reinas keep at least one florist in business on a daily basis!

Again, Marta and Andrés converse on a couch in the distance, this time filmed from the inside (dining room), not from the outside. Again, they are talking about their parallel romance threads with shop girls from the perfume store.

This scene is about Andrés wanting to get closer to Valentina, and Marta distancing herself from Cloe, but it is anchored by Valentina managing her trauma as a rape survivor.

It builds on this earlier moment of two women having a conversation in transitory spaces in this ep, where Cloe, talking to Valentina, is angry about Marta so easily keeping her distance...

...and her blouse bow, which was tied in 525 in a small and aligned manner that made it look less like a bow, is now back to being tied a little larger, and bent so that the loops are visible: we are not discussing the future of the company now, we are again discussing romance, where the bow in the wrong shape and color is another point in how Fina is in the room, an how Cloe is not her:

Meanwhile, Marta can already joke about "well, this was an exceptional moment of Cloe helping me out because she generally tries to avoid me now". She doesn't pass on her knowledge about Valentina having experienced sexualized violence (good. And Marta still doesn't know the details herself)...

...but Marta does flash back to the moment where she learned about Valentina's "bad experience" with Rodrigo from Cloe, which was when Cloe was wearing the pink chiffon blouse with the bow that very directly called up Fina, and her parallel experience of sexual violence:

The flashback, before Marta decides to keep the confidence and not share what she knows with Andrés, cuts out a central moment of that scene, which is the image of Marta touching that bow, obviously thinking of Fina while she says, distraught, "it wouldn't be the first time something like this happens".

We do, however, still see Marta's expression at reaching out:

I would assume they cut out the moment of Marta's hand on that bow because the current scene, on the couch with Andrés, is not about Fina's trauma or about Marta remembering Fina, but about Valentina's trauma and Marta remembering the conversation about it, even though abck then, it was centrally about remembering Fina, but that would interfere with the narrative thread here (the same indirect parallel then happens again in 528).

[mrsdaphnefielding]

#526 - honorable mentions (3)

Women holding conversations in transitory spaces, revisited:

What the Luzgoña?!

Now that Beatriz The Vampire Queen has put the moves on Begoña, do our married subtextual lesbians get an extended subtextual cheating storyline when Luz turns to Nieves in her grief? (great drab lights of existential despair included!)

Luz already has a nurse in her life! But since that nurse is stuck in her role as wife and mother next to a manipulator husband with poor impulse control, does Luz turn to Nieves now?

Luz, I think both Begoña and the Luzgoña fandom would like to know what the hell you are doing (can't blame Nieves, when Luz unpacks the "at some point, everyone is someone's light" line --- Luz, "at some point"?! Don't you think you're Begoña's light any llonger? Trouble in paradise?)

Begoña, please get into your car - the car she seems to share with Marta because all the women at the casa grande just get one (1) Beetle, collectively? - and tell your wife to put on her coat.

And give her a soulful hug. Because this right here - wrong nurse! - doesn't seem to put Luz fully at ease:

(yes, I know that Begoña as the spotless heroine cannot be tied to the assisted suicide plot wheras Nieves, who is higher on the Lady Macbeth scale, can, but stop messing with poor Luz!)

[mrsdaphnefielding]

#526 - honorable mentions (2)

Has the show dialed up its loving acknowledgement of patterns exemplified by Portrait de la jeune fille en feu again?

About twenty eps ago we got the household community of women of different classes over everyday labor at the breakfast table that seemed like a conscious reference to that kind of space and energy, between Digna, Marta and Manuela.

Now, we get the a fireplace closeup to preface this domestic quiet of different generations and classes between Julia, Begoña (+ Juan who isn't performing any masculinity yet) and Tere - who gets another line! - and the dollhosue seems cozy for once, set up as a peaceful scene into which Gabriel then intrudes, surly, aggressive and disruptive.

Some other moments that stuck:

The close up of the signatures of the women workers fighting for equal pay, across various sheets of paper, taking up the entire screen as a cornered Pablo leafes through them.

And something that's not on the Editing Team, but on my Mafin-pavloved brain in the "oh, Toledo by night!" scene separator [Mafin Drive Cut: 00:37:27]: you play me that jingle, and I will always, always expect the next scene to be Marta in a hotel room, in a ballgown and with a pilfered bottle of champagne: