The theater of Basté and Urdangarin

This Thursday night, Jordi Basté premiered his Sequence plan On La 2 Cat, with a guest who undoubtedly served as a draw: Iñaki Urdangarin. From a strictly formal point of view, with a single continuous shot, never stopping the camera, the program is technically ambitious. And a risk that many professionals wouldn't take, because editing can improve the interviews and also improve them as interviewees. On the other hand, the long take requires a lot of rehearsal for the technique to work. And all rehearsal involves a certain theatricality. For example: Basté, at the end of the conversation, regrets having left a book in the car. He even puts his head on the table to express how upsetting it is to have to stop the interview to go and get it. Then, in the subsequent broadcast about the making-ofWe discovered that this supposed "oversight" was planned and rehearsed. In other words, the interview contained a fictional element. Basté claims he was allowed to do so, but that's not true. And this raises doubts about the veracity of everything that happens. Even the guest had choreographed his walk through the dining room to react to the pause. That is to say, the single-shot sequence isn't always a guarantee of transparency. It's also artificial.

Jordi Basté has dedicated hours of radio to preemptive criticism and justification. So many, in fact, that it's symptomatic. He has sought to legitimize the approach by dismantling journalistic conventions. "It's not an interview program, it's a conversation," says Basté, as an excuse to explain that the dialogue with Urdangarin doesn't contain the questions we would expect to be asked of the former son-in-law of the emeritus king. Urdangarin was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison in the Nóos case, charged with embezzlement of public funds, administrative misconduct, fraud, influence peddling, and two tax offenses. He is the figure who exemplifies the Crown's permeability to corrupt practices. He is the link connecting monarchical power to the case's plot. And the public has never had his perspective on a case of undeniable social interest. It's understandable that Basté wants to produce an entertaining program with emotional conversation. That's easy to achieve with the actress Emma Vilarasau, for example. But for the star of Catalan radio, the most listened-to journalist in the country, to have Urdangarin as his guest and limit himself to "poor thing, when you were in prison" and "now you're a new man" is frankly disappointing. Basté erases the context of the guest: at no point are the "royal family," "infanta," or "Nóos case" mentioned. Nor is the reason for his imprisonment explained. Basté declared: "The past is the past. Nothing about that!" Thatwhich is unpronounceable. Even when Urdangarin says he has no intention of committing a crime, Basté changes the subject. And all of this is accompanied by relaxing massage parlor music, which we saw. More than a single shot, it was an off-screen space, where the viewer was only aware of everything crucial that remained outside the narrative. When the meticulousness makes us lose sight of journalism and professional instinct, what we see is a play, not even a conversation.