Politics is such a swamp that sometimes it doesn’t even allow the people associated with it to rest in peace after their death. Apparently, this is what the Spanish mini-series “Santa Evita” precisely depicts. Directed by Rodrigo GarcÃa and Alejandro Maci, the series is the adaptation of the Argentine journalist Tomas Eloy’s 1995 best-selling novel by the same name. It is the story of Santa Evita, the first lady of Argentina, and the journey of her embalmed corpse, which waited twenty years for its burial.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Did Juan Peron Want to Preserve His Wife, Santa Evita’s, Body?
The series opens with the death of Santa Evita in 1952. Being a popular social worker and spiritual leader, Evita’s demise was a big blow to the common people of the country. Then-acting president Juan Domingo Peron knew the stature his late wife possessed among the people of Argentina. That said, he decided to preserve her body and keep her under a memorial monument that would remind the coming generation of the work she did for eternity. His idea was to erect a statue of Descamisado (a shirtless man; in Spanish) which would be taller than the Statue of Liberty, and store Evita’s body at its base. Hence, he called one of the most renowned doctors in Argentina, Dr. Ara, to perform the body-preservation procedure on Evita. However, post-Evita’s demise, the atrocities of the opposition party against the Peron government increased drastically. So much so that he couldn’t look after the idea of building a memorial structure for his wife and was overburdened with disposing of the mayhem that was growing in the country. Unfortunately, in 1955, the new military government was successful enough to create a bad reputation for Juan and Evita among the citizens. They had to flee the country and settle in Madrid, Spain.
What Happened After The Military Coup In 1955? Why Did The Military Want To Get Rid Of Santa Evita’s Corpse?
The new military regime didn’t want their people to remember Peron and Evita and the extensive social work they did. They wanted to erase everything related to the former government, which might create a problem for them in the future. Surely, establishing Evita’s memorial would ignite people’s support for her. Hence, they decided to bury Evita’s body in secrecy so that she could never earn the reputation of a saint. After the military coup, colonel Moori Koenig was ordered to get rid of Evita’s corpse. He reaches out to Dr. Ava and gains control of Evita’s embalmed body. However, Juan had already arranged to make a few more copies of Evita’s corpse to save the original one from the enemies. Nevertheless, Moori Koenig takes four bodies from CGT and recruits three more military soldiers, Eduardo Arancibia, Milton Galarza, and Gustavo Adolfo Fesquet, on a secret mission to dispose of the bodies.
Moori arranges four different spots for the burial of the corpse at midnight and assigns one corpse each to his soldiers in order to complete the mission. On the other hand, Moori himself keeps the original one (as he was told by Dr. Ara) and leaves for the designated location for its burial. Unfortunately, while the other three soldiers successfully buried Evita’s corpse, Moori couldn’t complete his mission because of the fire accident that took place at his planned burial location.
Hence, he decides to wait at an isolated location away from the burial location and return there at the right moment. While waiting on his military truck, Moori falls asleep and wakes up afterward, sometimes only to find that there are flowers and candles kept outside his truck with Evita’s photo in the middle, as if people had paid respect to Evita’s corpse. However, the whole street was empty. He takes the truck back to his military headquarters and lets the body rest in the truck so as to learn about the people who he believed were spying on him.
Despite strong security, the candles always used to reappear near the truck, which started to take a toll on Moori’s mental health. Days passed, and he kept looking for new places to hide the body from the possible spies. Next, he shifts the body to Eduardo Arancibia’s house, but eventually has to move the body after Eduardo kills his wife accidentally by mistaking her for a spy.
Later, Moori’s close aide, Cifuentes, who owned a cinema hall in the town, asked the colonel to hide the body at his cinema hall, but somehow the candles appeared there too.
Who was Santa Evita? How Did She Earn A Reputation As A Saint?
In 1971, the star journalist of one of the most popular media houses in Argentina, Critica del Plata, Mariano Vázquez, got a new assignment from his boss to cover the story of Santa Evita. Based on an anonymous tip from a source, his boss tells him that, as a compromise, the government is going to return Santa Evita’s corpse, which had been missing for nearly twenty years, to Juan in Madrid. Naturally, Mariano takes up the task and decides to find the truth behind the tip.
He meets Evita’s former hair stylist, Alcaraz, who tells him how he had known Evita since the time she was nothing and was making her debut in the film industry. He also informs him that it was he who gave her a blonde look, which went on to become one of Evita’s most recognizable features.
On the suggestion of Alcaraz, Mariano next meets Correa, who worked at CGT, where the body of Evita was kept for three years. Mariano tells him that after the military coup, CGT was shut down, and the body was taken away by colonel Moori Koenig. He gave him the address of Moori, but Mariano couldn’t find him there.
Next, he gets to know about a close associate of Colonel Moori named Cifuentes, who was also an anti-Peronist. He meets the Cifuentes at his theater, who finally take him to Moori Koenig. Colonel Moori, who is now an old man, decides to finally open his mouth about the whereabouts of Evita’s body. He tells him how he met Evita and helped her pass the law that gave the women of Argentina the right to vote. Unfortunately, by this time, Moori had become an alcoholic, and his health had deteriorated significantly. He kept passing out while narrating his side of the story and eventually revealed that he had buried Evita’s body on his grandparents’ farm in Germany before dying.
Where Was Santa Evita Actually Buried?
Unhappy to locate the exact location of the body of Santa Evita, Mariano returns to his house to find the two former associates of colonel Moori Koenig-Milton Galarza and Gustavo Adolfo Fesquet waiting for him at his place along with Cifuentes. After finding out the motive behind the interviews that the journalist had with Moori, the associates tell him what really happened with the body.
After Colonel Moori lost track of Evita’s body, he was expelled from the army and sent to Germany. Next, the mission of discarding Evita’s other copies that remained in CGT was assigned to the new colonel, Corominas. He recommissioned Milton Galarza and Gustavo Adolfo Fesquet to complete the task. He tells them that there are only two copies of the body left. Moreover, Dr. Ara, who had inspected those bodies, concluded that one of them was the actual body of Santa Evita, and somebody had even marked it with a cross, which was almost negligible. Moori knew about it, and he threatened to reveal the current government’s secret to the public if he did not deliver the original body to Germany.
Corominas asks Gustavo to make the same mark on Evita’s fake body and deliver it to Moori in Germany. On the other hand, Milton was assigned to deliver the real body to Milan, Italy, by traveling there in the form of an Italian imposter named Giorgio Magistris. In Genoa, he was expected to meet some people who would guard the body before delivering it to Juan at his residence.
The body stayed with Juan and his third wife, Isabel Peron, at his residence for four years. Nevertheless, after 18 years in exile, Juan finally returned to Argentina and became president for the third time. In 1974, after the demise of Juan, his wife Isabel Peron, who was the vice-president of Argentina, arranged to bring back Evita’s corpse to be buried beside Juan’s. However, Evita’s followers didn’t let that happen, and she was finally buried in the Duarte family tomb in La Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires.
“Santa Evita” is an Argentinian Series streaming on Hulu with subtitles.