A surreal telling

Bangkok Post

5 days ago

You are not alone if you get into Superstar, the new Netflix miniseries from Spain, without knowing it's based on a real-life figure -- a once-infamous Spanish dance-pop singer from the late 1990s named Tamara, who later reinvented herself as Yurena.
Over six chaotic episodes, Superstar offers a fantastical, dreamlike dramatisation of her turbulent rise to fame and transformation into a pop culture phenomenon. But instead of presenting a straightforward biopic, the series delivers something much stranger and more stylised -- an offbeat, surreal trip through the glitter, trauma, and absurdity of notoriety.
With its hallucinatory visuals, fractured storytelling and bizarre tonal shifts, Superstar feels like watching a show inside someone else's fever dream. And again, you're not alone if you finish all six episodes and walk away feeling like you somehow know less about Tamara than before. If that's the case, fear not -- Netflix also offers a companion documentary, I'm Still A Superstar, which provides more biographical context and can help ground the dramatic version for those who felt completely unmoored by the miniseries.
As the new millennium dawned, Spain saw an explosion of fame that wasn't polished or conventional. Superstar captures that atmosphere, portraying a time when figures from the fringes of mainstream culture burst into public consciousness. Tamara -- improbable, unconventional and unapologetically herself -- embodied this strange, shifting era. For a few brief years, she dominated Spanish tabloid headlines and TV screens, challenging societal expectations of fame, beauty and success. The show reflects this spirit through its disorienting structure, vibrant visuals and larger-than-life characters.
That said, this is not going to be for everyone. The show is bizarre -- at times purposefully off-putting. It presents a cast of characters who hover on the margins of society: grating, narcissistic, dysfunctional, and, in some cases, deeply repellent. While the overarching plot traces Tamara's rise in the public eye, each episode focuses on a particular environment or relationship that shaped her journey. These spaces -- be they her childhood home, a reality TV set or the backroom of a gaudy nightclub -- each deserve their own chapter in her mythos.
Watching Superstar, I was reminded of the French film Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010), a biopic of Serge Gainsbourg that also used surrealism and stylised fantasy to portray an artist's interior world. Similarly, Superstar blends the real with the imagined. The result is an experience that's more emotionally or symbolically true than literally accurate -- although that lack of clarity can be frustrating if, like me, you start the series without any knowledge of Tamara or her career.
I can only imagine that many of the characters we see on screen are exaggerated versions of real people, filtered through a lens of satire and dark humour.
There are amusing and strange details -- like Tamara's mother keeping a brick in her purse -- that may or may not be true, but feel emotionally symbolic.
One particularly weird creative decision is having the same elderly actress portray the mother at every stage of Tamara's life, from childhood to adulthood. It's a bold, surreal choice that feels more metaphorical than realistic. But that's emblematic of the series' overall approach: blending fact and fiction so thoroughly that the line between what happened and what might have happened is nearly erased.
The story does progress, mostly in linear fashion, but it's filtered through multiple points of view. This occasionally makes the timeline feel jumpy or disjointed, especially as each new character enters Tamara's life and brings their own perspective. However, the one constant is Tamara's mother, who remains by her side throughout the years. This relationship becomes a kind of emotional anchor, helping to ground the viewer and maintain a thread of continuity amid the chaos.
Despite its strangeness, Superstar gradually builds momentum. Each episode adds another layer to the portrait of Tamara -- a woman both vulnerable and audacious, mocked and celebrated, crushed and defiant. By the final episode, the emotional payoff arrives. The tone shifts in a surprising but welcome way. Episode 6 stands apart for its sensitivity and sincerity, pulling back from the wild surrealism to reveal something more raw and heartfelt.
It's a poignant conclusion that touches on universal themes: the conflict between parent and child, between control and freedom, between what others expect from us and what we expect from ourselves.
Visually, the series is rich and electric. Red is the dominant colour, evoking passion, danger, and spectacle. Some of the musical performances and concert scenes are hypnotic and immersive. The costume and production design is another highlight -- every wig, outfit and glitter-drenched backdrop contributes to the show's heightened, theatrical feel. The lead actors are deeply committed to the material and look the part, fully inhabiting the hyperreal world the creators have conjured.
Ultimately, it was the finale that elevated my appreciation for Superstar. Around the end of Episode 5 and especially throughout Episode 6, I started to connect emotionally with the show in a way I hadn't expected.
Underneath the satire, absurdity and flamboyant camp is a sincere story about a woman striving to define herself in a world that wanted to mock and diminish her. The push-and-pull between Tamara and her mother -- between personal ambition and familial pressure -- gives the show its emotional weight.
Superstar may not be a traditional biopic, but it captures the imagination and wild energy required to survive and thrive in the spectacle of showbiz.