Evita animated film makes Argentina debut by Astrid Riehm,

Oct 20, 2011, 4:06 GMT

Buenos Aires - She's been made into a saint. She's been made into a demon. Just about the only thing Eva Peron (1919-1952) hasn't been made into is ... a cartoon.

That all changes Thursday, when the legendary Argentinian first lady joins the ranks of Snow White and Cinderella as the star of her very own full-length animated feature.

'Eva of Argentina' (Eva de la Argentina) isn't the first time Eva Peron's life has made it to the silver screen. The second wife of president Juan Domingo Peron, who governed Argentina from 1946 to 1955 and again from 1973 to 1974, has been mythologized in at least four films, including Alan Parker's 1996 adaptation of the award-winning musical 'Evita,' in which Madonna sang and danced her way through Peron's short life.

That, says the Maria Seoane, the film's director, presented a challenge.

'The story of Eva Peron has been told so many times. How to tell it?' asked Seoane, in a press conference earlier this week.

Her answer was a new one. 'The choice of animation allowed us to use metaphor to express the passion, the loyalty, the hate, the vengeance and the political compromise that characterized her, and of which she was also the object,' Seoane said.

'Eva of Argentina' tells the story of Peron's life and beyond, starting with her illegitimate childhood in the town of Los Toldos and ending with the bizarre odyssey of her embalmed corpse, kidnapped by militants who overthrew Peron in 1955.

In between, the film covers her early acting career, her 'love at first sight' meeting with General Peron, the contempt she drew from Argentina's cultured classes, the social action that made her the champion of Argentina's poor, and the cancer that killed her at 33.

'We showed all the turning points in Eva's life. We didn't leave out anything important. There's not a single date that's not true. This is not historical fiction,' said Seoane, an author and investigative journalist.

The film is structured around four central figures: Eva, Juan Peron, a character called Juan Pueblo, or John People, and Rodolfo Walsh, a dissident journalist who was 'disappeared' by the military regime, who serves as the film's narrator. Walsh, who was last seen a day after publishing the famous 'Open Letter to the Military Junta' in 1977, authored a famous short story about Peron, entitled 'That Woman.'

While the other characters in the film are voiced by actors, Eva speaks for herself, in recordings made while she was alive.

'I didn't want to fictionalize Eva. Lots of people have spoken for her. I wanted her to speak for herself,' said Seoane.

With the exception of a few documentary clips, the story is told through animation, based on drawings by the late Argentinian cartoonist Francisco Solano Lopez. Two-time Oscar winner Gustavo Santaolalla wrote music for the film.

'When I was young, I felt the need to politicize, and the figure of Eva Peron was very important to me,' Santaolalla recalled. 'When Maria told me that the film would use Solano Lopez's drawings, and be narrated by Walsh, I got really interested. What I like is that it's not a (partisan) film that takes a position. It's interesting for anyone, regardless of ideology.'

The film opens Thursday in Buenos Aires. Unofficial film clips have popped up on YouTube before the release.