Guillermo Francella as Eliseo in the Argentine series 'El encargado'
Eliseo, the doorman from the Argentine series
El encargado
, approaches the elevator technician when he is about to leave the building after having made a repair.
He informs her that the percentage he charges her for every job he does there has increased.
The technician protests, but reluctantly agrees to pay for it.
"With a tent" (disguisingly), Eliseo asks him when he receives the tickets.
This corrupt manager and extortionist, played in fiction by Guillermo Francella, has seduced Argentine viewers, including many goalkeepers, but has generated harsh rejection among leaders in the sector.
"We want to express our total rejection of both Francella and the production of this fiction produced by the Star+ platform that has caused us enormous discomfort," says a public letter signed by Diego Trejo, head of the Association of managers.
"His violent corruption does not represent us in the least and that is why together with the group that we make up we have decided to come out and show our faces so that people do not get carried away by this dark story that leaves us so badly unemployed."
The head of the building managers union (Suterh), Víctor Santa María, has avoided making public statements, but has opted for a silent boycott.
The Grupo Octubre media, directed by Santa María, have avoided any mention of the series: no reviews can be found either in the newspaper
Página 12
or on Canal 9 television.
"It's stupid, a discussion from the 19th century," responded actor Gabriel Puma Goity, who in El encargado
plays Matías Zambrano, the hated president of the consortium and Eliseo's antagonist
, responded to the controversy .
"I am jealous because the Bar Association did not call me complaining," he added, ironically, in radio statements.
Francella also came out to defend the series directed by Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn.
"They felt touched, but under no point of view we wanted to disrespect anyone," she said, "This speaks a bit of intellectual mediocrity, of the absolute lack of criteria to reason a fictional proposal."
As in their films, the new production by Duprat and Cohn mixes comedy with suspense and generates a tension that is hard to shake off.
Francella shines in her role, giving life to a manager with whom she empathizes at times, but others fear or hate.
In the main cast, two renowned Argentine actresses also stand out: Moro Anghileri as Paola and Pochi Ducasse as Beba.
Second season
This week, the surroundings of the Belgrano building where the series takes place are delimited by tapes that the filming staff crosses in a hurry in both directions.
Given the success of the first season, the creative duo of
Official Competition
and
The Illustrious Citizen
has already begun filming the second.
Behind the counter where viewers usually find Elisha is now a security guard.
The actual manager no longer works there.
Like the fictional one, he lived for years with more or less conflicting owners;
unlike Elisha, he ended up giving in.
He “was not yet of age to retire, but in the end he settled with the consortium during the pandemic.
They reached an agreement with the money and the consortium paid them,” says Carlos García, manager of a nearby building.
Antonio Segueso and José González, other managers on the same block, corroborate that there was an economic arrangement to leave their job.
All three have seen the series and say they liked it.
"It's a fiction," they say, siding with Francella.
With more than twenty years of work each in their respective buildings —Segueso, 68, hopes to retire in 2023—, they admit the existence of certain corruption in the sector —“I know of some cases,” says González—, but they exculpate the majority and remark that in no case do they have behaviors as extreme as those of the protagonist.
What stands out, instead, is the portrait he makes of the conflicts between owners and the daily tasks of a trade that is moving towards extinction.
To save expenses, more and more buildings do without the manager, they rent their home and with that income they hire a cleaning service.
"Many colleagues who retire are not replaced," acknowledges García.
In his building there are four employees: him, an assistant and two of his own security guards.
“It's quite a number,” he says, not wanting to reveal his salary.
The minimum salary agreed by the union is 117,000 pesos per month (about 680 dollars at the official exchange rate).
When González started, he also had an assistant and the building was guarded by a night watchman during the day and another at night.
29 years later, he is alone.
At the entrance you can see a security totem similar to the one in the series, connected via the internet to a guard.
"It's not the same, if something happens there's no one," he warns.
The "Eliseo building", as it now appears on Google Maps, receives the visit of many curious people these days.
Neighboring managers also watch the movement of the cameras while they clean the windows or sweep the sidewalk, waiting to anticipate some detail that will be projected on the small screen in a few months.
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