Isabel Coixet brings to the big screen the story of Marcela Gracia Ibeas and Elisa Sánchez Loriga, two women who got married by the Church in 1901
GAYLES.TV.- The story of Marcela and Elisa It is as fascinating as it is enigmatic. Who were they really and why did they get married? Risking in the Galicia of 1901 and doing it in addition for the Church, is something that even now would not be easy to assume. But it is also the story of this couple is full of chiaroscuros, lights and shadows that none of the works that have been written about them has managed to unveil.
Because the 8 of June of 1901, who were united in marriage in the church of San Jorge de la Coruña as Mario and MarcelaIn fact, they were Elisa and Marcela, two women who would be discovered and whose history would occupy the headlines of the press of the time. A photograph of both was published revealing his true identity with a caption that read: A marriage without a man. The harassment and persecution to which they are subjected by the police, the Church and the press and the order issued by a judge decreeing their search and capture forces them to flee to Porto, Portugal, where they start a new life as Pepe and Marcela. But the tranquility hardly hard 2 months. Spain requests extradition and the couple is detained and imprisoned with a great stir of the Portuguese society and of the Spanish residents in Porto who take sides with the couple.
But the great wave of solidarity does not prevent Spain from insisting on extradition and Portugal accepts it but with a subterfuge that will prevent the arrest: before being extradited they are tried and acquitted allowing a new flight of the couple, this time to Argentina. New life and new identity change, Marcela will call herself Carmen and Elisa María. They do not travel together, first Elisa moves and later Marcela would, accompanied by a girl, her daughter who had given birth in Porto the previous year, just 6 months after the marriage of both. But who was that daughter and what role does she play in this story? Narciso de Gabriel, author of the book "Marcela and Elisa, beyond men", published in Galician in 2008 and translated into Spanish in 2010, ventures two possible hypotheses: the first holds that "Marcela became pregnant as a result of the relationships she had with a local youth and that Elisa got dressed to cover the boy or girl" and the second, which is more to the author's liking, states that “it could have been a premeditated pregnancy. That is to say, Elisa and Marcela were not content with becoming husband and wife but wanted to have offspring. But in reality there is no evidence to support it.
Once in Argentina, Elisa / Maria decides to marry again, but this time with a man of Danish origin. Gabriel tells that "Marriage is not happy and ends badly, among other things because Elisa refuses to have sex with the husband. There was a significant age difference of more than 20 years ”. Be that as it may, the husband discovers María's hidden life and denounces her, which gives rise to a new judicial process, medical tests, etc ... Come on, a new and surprising turn of events in this authentic soap opera.
From there, the thread is lost and there is only proof of the report of a Mexican newspaper of 1909 that affirms that Elisa / María had committed suicide in Veracruz.
It's no wonder that this amazing story has seduced Isabel Coixet and that he has decided to take her to the movies. Although the director acknowledges that the subject is unusual, she affirms that her intentions are not political: “It is true that there are very few stories about women in love. But this is not a manifesto. It's natural for me to write stories about women, and then producers keep asking why. They never ask a male director why they want to make a Dunkirk movie. But they asked me: 'Why do you want to make a film about two women who got married in Galicia in 1901?'
Come on, that's heroic, man!
A response from Coixet that we share and celebrate, because it is indeed a fact, a story of a heroism that deserves not to be forgotten.
Sources: bbc.com, bbc.com/mundo
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