🍿 2022-05-08 ​​04:34:27 – Paris/France.
The morning of June 29, 2010, VerĂłnica Montes (Aline KĂĽppenheim) disappears from her home in the Altos del Lago condominium in southern Chile. The first clues are confusing: the car keys were in the car, the most expensive items in the house seem intact and there are no signs of a possible theft. Mario (Daniel AlcaĂno), su marido y padre de sus dos hijas, Karen (Julia LĂĽbbert) y Emilia (Monserrat Lira), says that this dĂa mientras estaba en un trámite recibiĂł una llamada en que se le pedĂa dinero por el rescate de su Woman. Although then no one contacts him again for this reason.
Those who know what happened around the crime of Viviana Haeger during the first 24 hours after her disappearance, in Puerto Varas in 2010, and who watch the series 42 days in the dark From this Wednesday, they will be able to identify how the Netflix production draws a start in which it remains fairly faithful to reality (the platform has only advanced three of the six episodes that make it up to the press).
Photo: Diego Araya Corvalan/Netflix ©2022
However, real names are not used in the story (as was the case in Presidentalso from the production company Fábula), as the story progresses, the licenses increase and at the end of each chapter, after the credits, it is specified that it is a fiction only " inspired by real events", in which "the events, the characters and the dialogues are fictitious".
“It was very important, when making decisions as directors, to work on a story that was not based on, but inspired; therefore, it does not seek to document an absolute truth, but rather to choose a greater, much broader reflection, ”explains Claudia Huaiquimilla (1987), director in charge of the title with Gaspar Antillo (1983). "It's a separate universe that works in itself", completes their duo.
Originally, the project began to be developed by journalist Rodrigo Fluxá in partnership with Fábula a few years before Netflix made it its first original series in the country. The basis was granted by his book You know who. Notes on the Murder of Viviana Haeger (Catalonia-Periodismo UDP, 2019), which brings together from his early days as a reporter on the case in Puerto Varas, to the 2017 decision in which Haeger's widower, Jaime Anguita, was acquitted – after two years in preventive detention for his alleged participation in the crime – and hitman José Pérez Mancilla was convicted of robbery with homicide.
Known above all for their work in the cinema, Huaiquimilla (bad advice) and Antillo (nobody knows i'm here) joined the team later, both assuming the direction and she, in addition, the co-writing of the screenplay, a task already in the hands of Fluxá. "There are many milestones in the investigation that have been respected, because they reveal something that is close to our hearts as a memory, to talk about a case that represents many others," explains the director. "In order not to directly target certain individuals," he says, they watched widely and reviewed other similar real-life episodes, in order to achieve " an exercise in empathy with what can happen with the disappearance of a sister, a mother, a daughter".
The main objective, he says, was to develop “a human reflection that perhaps remained in abeyance. Not only to pass judgment on what happened in the past, but to ask oneself in the present if the disappearance of a woman happened today, how it would be approached by society, by our environment, by our family, by the media, and also whether the justice system and the Chilean police would be much better prepared than at that time or not".
In the series, the weight of the story rests particularly on two characters: Cecilia Montes (Claudia Di Girolamo), the sister of the woman of whom all trace is lost, and VĂctor Pizarro (Pablo Macaya), a lawyer thirsty for revenge who ends up getting involved in the heart of the case. Then, in a slightly less central orbit, are VerĂłnica's husband and the police team led by Toledo (Claudio Arredondo).
“These characters offered a contrast and a slightly more 360 ​​view of the police monument. Pizarro perhaps represented the slightly more popular side and we thought that clash was very important, because otherwise it would only remain in two dimensions,” says Antillo. “We wondered how a violent crime against a woman is handled, and we realized that it cannot be handled like any police enigma. And we made it a part of each of our questions and when choosing a perspective,” says the director.
Told in the form of a detective thriller, the fiction progressively incorporates new figures, some more and others less inspired by reality: the main character's mother (Gloria Münchmeyer), a friend to her (Tamara Acosta) and two old colleagues of the lawyer in history (Néstor Cantillana, Amparo Noguera). A montage that reproduces the concerns of the filmmakers. "This step also affects a community, a country, and other ecosystems have been affected, including the reaction of the media, the police and the judicial system," explains Huaiquimilla. “Inspiration offers an x-ray of who we were ten years ago, whether we were a totally or seemingly different society than we are today,” adds Antillo.
Photo: Diego Araya Corvalan/Netflix ©2022
On the influence of the book you know who In the final result, Huaiquimilla clarifies: "It helped us a lot to learn details that were foreign to us at the time, but in truth, to build our story, other types of elements were more important, such as remembering of what I felt at that time (in 2010) and the concern felt by many women in the face of the disappearance of a woman: a lot of empathy". And he underlines the nature of the series: “It's a detective thriller, but we can't speak in this case of a real crime, because we don't do an expert report on a specific document. »
In April 2021, a week after Netflix's announcement 42 days in the dark, the two daughters of Viviana Haeger expressed their dissatisfaction with the series through a letter published in the newspaper El Llanquihue, assuring that no one from the production had contacted them before to inform them of the project. Sources consulted by The third They specify that it happened with Mónica Haeger, sister of the accountant who disappeared in 2010; Although she didn't read the scripts – an unusual practice in the audiovisual industry when it comes to fiction based on real characters – she was made aware of its existence before it became official.
MatĂas KĂĽnsemĂĽller, defense lawyer for Jaime Anguita in the third criminal trial, points out to this media: "In the case of Vivian and Susan, they are two girls whose mother was killed and whose father was imprisoned for two years. The eldest, Vivian, was to be the mother and father of her younger sister. The public prosecutor never treated them as victims; He didn't even bother to refer them to a psychologist. And he adds: “You could say Jaime is older and trying to get over it, but for the girls it's brutal. They're gonna have to see this (42 days…) and the gossip will return. I hope it's clear that this is a fictional series and they knew that there were two girls who at the time were minors and whose lives were destroyed”.
Photo: Diego Araya Corvalan/Netflix ©2022
Faced with this malaise, Huaiquimilla indicates:We regret that at some point part of the family felt overwhelmed to take for that information, especially the girls, because as directors, but also the actors and the whole artistic team, we worked from a very empathetic place.
"Fiction operates in a different way, and in this story we focus primarily on the character journeys," he says of the plot's conclusion. “Beyond what is happening with police and judicial expertise, the closure that they will be able to experience with us has to do with this journey that is being undertaken, with this counting of days which is becoming infinite. »
SOURCE: Reviews News
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