doradixon Review of Eva Doesn't Sleep

Eva Doesn't Sleep (2015)

What happened to Eva Peron's corpse during the decades until it was returned to Argentina.

[2/10 · 15 September 2015]

I saw "Eva no duerme" at the Toronto Int'l Film Festival (September 2015). I was disappointed: the material is so incredibly rich, there's so much to the real story of Eva's corpse, and yet the director picked only a couple of moments to explore. That would be still good if the treatment of those moments were superb, but they are not. To begin with, he focused on the embalming of the body. The movie is billed as a real story, but the director wants us to believe it was done after the funeral and during the coup that sent Peron to exile; in the middle of chaos the embalmer (Arias) was forced to finish his job without electricity. A lot of emphasis on Eva's lace clothing and candles and little to the real story. There's another moment when a couple of navy personnel transport the body: they spent a huge amount of time talking nonsense and drinking and fighting. Who cares? It's irrelevant and absurd. Then there's the kidnapping of Aramburu by the Montoneros (supposedly because it's not explained): the acting is like watching high school students doing a melodrama. Not credible at all. A pity to see excellent actors like Gael Garcia Bernal and Imanol Arias being reduced to a few moments of inconsequential acting. A ripoff.