Being a feminist writer and journalist in 1970s Chile and having the same last name as the president ousted in a military coup wasn’t exactly a comfortable position. Far from there. The challenges, tragedies and life’s achievements of Isabel Allende, 78, to date the world’s best-selling Latin American author (74 million copies of her 24 novels) are the theme of the 3-part mini-series “Isabel”, which is on Amazon Prime.
Although it follows the life of Isabel Allende – who is the daughter of a cousin-in-law of Salvador Allende – chronologically, the work produces several flashbacks, inspired by the idea of returning to the past and its ghosts. through mirrors, in the tone of his most famous book, “A Casa dos Espíritos”, from 1982, which he began to write upon the death of his grandfather.
The Chilean distribution and production series makes a fantastic and colorful recreation of the period, showing 1970s Chile, its clothes, cars and hairstyles. At the same time, it exposes the shock between the mores of a society of Catholic tradition which had been called into question by the spirit of the seventies, rock, feminism and the revolutionary spirit.
Allende (played by Daniela Ramírez) first appears as a housewife who, almost casually, is invited to write articles about women in the magazine “Paula” – which, years later, will mark an era. But the themes he chooses begin to stir up society, such as female infidelity and criticism of male customs. Tormented by the fact that her father abandoned the family when she was little – Tomás Allende was a diplomat and the writer was born while stationed in Peru – the author questions the format of traditional families and the role of women.
All the euphoria at the time of the magazine, however, turns into a tragic drama at the dawn of September 11, 1973. After the bombing of La Moneda and the end of the Allende government, Isabel, who was not involved in business policies of the country, begins to help persecuted people, until she herself enters the list of repression. With her two children and her husband, she fled to Caracas, where her personal life took a turn. Isabel falls in love with an Argentinian musician and flees with him to Spain, only to break her face and return full of regret.
The greatest pain of his life, the death of his daughter, Paula Frías Allende, at 28, permeates the entire series, reflecting on how the author has treated, in his work, family dramas, loss and death. guilt. The author herself confessed, in an interview, that she could not see this passage from the series, due to the pain it still causes her. Paula will also inspire Isabel to return to writing after her grief, and the result was the book “Cartas a Paula”.
Now based in the United States, Isabel Allende recently launched “Largo Pétalo de Mar”, inspired by the trip of more than 2,000 Spaniards who went to Chile, fleeing Franco’s Spain, on a ship chartered by the poet. and Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda.