Until yesterday I had not the remotest idea who Tamara Falcó was. I wasn’t missing much either, apparently: their aspirational, ostentatious and detached way of life It has no interest per se for the viewer apart from celebrity and gossip. But the Netflix docureality adds something else to this life of supposed dream: an ironic tone that looks from a distance at the daughter of Isabel Preysler and he ridicules her routine without her being able to do anything about it.
Who wants to marry Tamara?
In ‘Tamara Falcó: La marquesa’ there are two proper names that mark the evolution of the episodes: one gives the series its name. The other is the John Paul Cofrewho in his day was producer of the program that Spanish television changed forever (regardless of who cares): ‘Who wants to marry my son?’
The program presented by Luján Argüelles, normally confused with trash TV by those who never approached him, It was a real revolution in reality whose effects are noticeable to this day. The content ceased to be relevant: no one cared about the dates or who they stayed with. The really important thing was the continent, the way it was narrated, the montage, the running gags. Her cast was perfect and the jokes happened week after week in the most natural way, accompanied by the most impossible sound effects.
Obviously they haven’t been able to go that far in the Netflix reality show, but they don’t need to either. Without going any further, its first minutes already make it clear that this is not going to be a program erected to the greater glory of Tamara Falcó: with the excuse of setting up a restaurant, the six episodes dissect the absolutely unreal life of a person who does not know the word “poverty” and whose biggest problem throughout the series is to remove some leaks from the mansion that he has just inherited as Marchioness of Griñón. The series does not have it difficult: just put a mirror in front of your life to reflect that where she wants to show luxury and tinsel there is really only a set with a path to absolutely nothing.
Mommy Preysler
“Instead of going out at night, having seven drinks or I don’t know what, what I wanted was to stay at home praying the Rosary“: as soon as it begins, the first laugh at the expense of Tamara Falcó. ‘La Marquesa’ has no mercy with her, and she bites her teeth while looking at the camera and feeling like Jim in ‘The Office’. Carolina Herrera parades, trips to Paris and New York, breakfasts talking about nothing with her boyfriend: a precious wrapping for a life on track towards the absurdity of emptiness.
There is an anecdote that he tells in a store during the second episode that is quite illuminating of the evolution of the life of Tamara Falcó: The first time they went to the Parthenon, they told her “Tamara, be careful, because these stones have been here for 4000 years, you know? You’re not going to come and suddenly, you know, break them.” After telling the joke, to the laughter of Isabel Preysler, she says, resigned, like someone who has recounted the great success that she always has to tell at family gatherings, “Well, we have already told that fabulous story of my childhood” in front of the incredulous look of the seller. No special effects or fun music needed: Tamara Falcó is the best possible parody of Tamara Falcó.
There are those who can confuse the life of the influencer and cook with a fairy tale, but nothing is further from reality. Her relationship with a businessman is an absolute disaster in the making where he is portrayed as the classic Madrid posh whose life is money and the gym (“The cycle of life: eat, burn, sleep, eat, burn, sleep”) and whose conversations are devoid of emotion, passion, vitality or, why not say it, humanity. That doesn’t stop much of the documentary from going about looking for wedding dresses or thinking about having children, of course. We must give meat to the means of the heart.
reality comedy
But there is something that Tamara Falcó (or her team) has done very well: sell this docuseries to Netflix and sneak them an undercover ad of his pop-up restaurant, which opened the same day as the premiere. I do not deny her quality as a cook: she has studied at Le Cordon Bleu and won ‘Masterchef Celebrity 4′ and her dishes really look good, but she has managed to make the series’ narrative thread the problems, and the subsequent opening, of her own elite restaurant, where she it is the center of everything. As if she, instead of being an influencer, was the owner of El Bulli…
This is not new, because if ‘La Marquesa’ shows us anything, it is that the center of Tamara Falcó’s universe is not her boyfriend, her mom, her kitchen or her faith: is Tamara Falco. She has always had everything she wanted, everything has turned out well and her biggest problem has been finding a boyfriend and getting along with the paparazzi. The series is hilarious, yes, but at the cost of a person who doesn’t know (nor wants to know) what a real problem is..
‘Tamara Falcó: The Marchioness’ has a subtle but hilarious montage (note the parallel montage of Vargas Llosa reading with the Preyslers going shopping) and, unlike ‘Who wants to marry my son?’ no need to pull sound effects or running gags. Every scene looks like something out of a skit. about a character so alien to real life that his mere existence seems like a joke. And for that reason alone, it is worth taking a look at this lesser glory product of the Marchioness of Griñón.