Royal Family Drama ‘Ena,’ Spain’s Banner Screening at Mipcom, Unpacked by Stars Kimberley Tell, Joan Amargós
“Ena – Queen Victoria Eugenia,” the screening highlight in Mipcom’s Spain Country of Honor celebrations, begins with a bang.
Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, Queen Victoria youngest granddaughter, marries Spain’s Alfonso XIII at Madrid’s San Jerónimo Royal Monastery on May 31, 1906. Splendid first scenes see the couple after the wedding in their carriage, Ena smiling as crowds cry her name as the royal carriage sweeps past.
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But her happiness lasted less than two miles, the distance between Los Jerónimos to Madrid’s old part Calle Mayor where an anarchist throws a bomb. The opening scenes end with Ena and Alfonso slumped unconscious in their carriage.
Created by ‘The Department of Time’s’ Javier Olivares and directed by Ana?s Pareto and Estel Díaz, “Ena” is produced by Spanish public broadcaster RTVE, and Spain’s biggest royal drama to date.
What it isn’t, however, is a “The Crown” or “Maxima” knock-off.
This, after all, is a Spanish royal drama. That cuts several ways. For one thing, “Ena”is not always drama. Flashbacks to a year before the wedding occupy most of Episode 1, which had its world premiere at Mipcom Monday evening, recounting Alfonso’s courtship of Ena. That is played out as light romantic comedy, capturing their near innocent dalliance. “I fell asleep dreaming of you and woke up clutching my pillow, Alfonso writes in one letter to her.
Alfonso’s mother, Maria Cristina, an inveterate snob, is also the butt of jokes. “Ramones,” she says to Spain’s Prime Minister, “You’re a Count, right?” Implying he’s only a count. “Yes, ma’am,” he replies. “Then act as inn innkeeper,” she instructs him, referring to his finding accommodation for the wedding guests.
There’s a thriller element as well. Disinherited by his Catalan industrialist father, Mateo Morral falls under the influence of Barcelona anarchist Francisco Ferrer and swears to do something practical to further the cause of the disadvantaged. Recommended to create “a tremendous shake-up,” he throws a bouquet at the royal wedding carriage, strapped to a bomb.
Equally, Ena weighs in with a large sense of historical premonition. “A little more passion, dear,” Alfonso advises Ena as they wave to crowds outside the church. “If they’re unhappy with us, they could get rid of us,” he adds.
Alfonso, in this, was dead right. In 1931, Spain was declared a Republic, Alfonso living out the rest of his days in exile.
In the series’ first scene, Ena seems timid, and comes from a family of haemophiliacs. But she did her best. Married to the philandering Alfonso, Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg soldiered on through six children, including haemophilic young sons, the so-called Spanish flu of 1918, exile and two World Wars.
Adored by Queen Victoria whom she lived with at Balmoral in Scotland as a child, she lived long to be at the baptism of her great grandson Felipe, connecting royalty which ruled in Europe from 1832 to this day.
“Do not cry, Ena, nobody must know about your pain, and do not laugh, nobody should know about your emotions,” she remembers Queen Victoria advises her in a brief flashback.
“You will be unhappy,” her uncle Edward VII predicts. “And do not come back to England with your tail between your legs,” he berates her.
She will need such stoicism throughout this ambitious and sensitive series, also the banner title at Mipcom of the ever more outward looking Spanish public broadcaster, RTVE, which produces with Cometa TV.
Ena’s life and the series, viewers will sense, will turn on her battle for some kind of happiness, despite everything.
Variety chatted to stars Kimberley Tell and Joan Amargós at Mipcom, about “Ena.”
The first episode bucks many expectations by showing that Ena wasn’t forced to marry, but did so out of love….
Kimberley Tell: Yes, the beginnings were like a fairy tale, in which she was going to become Queen. She looked to the future with large hope. But she married because she was in love with Alfonso, not to be Queen. They’re in love like two adolescents.
As you play him, Joan, Alfonso XIII was highly charming. Even Luis Bu?uel, a communist and surrealist, in his autobiography “My Last Breath” has a relatively benign opinion about him.
Joan Amargós: Churchill said that Alfonso XIII was the most charming man he’d ever met. A friend of mine, actress María Hervás, once said that we’re attracted towards people who do things we won’t permit ourselves to do. Alfonso XIII was like a little boy who broke all the rules, because he’d been terribly spoilt by his mother. Infantile behaviour can be attractive in the short-term.
And in the longer term?
Amargós: It was as if Alfonso was unconscious of the consequences of his behaviour.
Tell: Maybe because she came to Spain and at first didn’t understand the language, Ena was far more observant about what was going on around them.
At one point in Ep. 1, Morral talks in Paris to a fellow revolutionary that “it can’t be that some people live in such obscene opulence and others in absolute misery,” and the series cuts to Ena, trying on the latest fashion in dresses and hats, preparing for her wedding. This is also a social issue work….
Tell: Yes, but given the series is told from the couples’ point of view, you begin to empathize with them and understand their situation. We are all human and have the same elemental sentiments. Also, Ena was not a figurehead, reacting to what she saw. She supported Spain’s Red Cross, whose work – though not just in Spain– was recognized by a Nobel Peace Prize in 1917.
And how is “Ena” directed?
Tell: It’s as if each episode is its own film, with a different style and rhythm.
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