One of the most recommended books in recent months has been Histories of Ghosts, by Siri Hustvedt, in which the writer reflects on grief, love, and memory after the death of her husband, Paul Auster. Now, the platform Filmin has released a documentary about the author that connects, in a way, with this new phase of loss. In principle, Siri Hustvedt: Dance around the self was not intended to explore this most tragic personal episode. But Auster's death inevitably ends up permeating the story. The novelist, in fact, is part of the voices participating in the documentary when he was already ill. And his death occurs when they had not yet finished filming. Therefore, months after being widowed, the documentary picks up the thread and takes the opportunity to also show us this period of adjustment to the absence of her husband. The writer's entire intimate circle, including her sisters, daughter, son-in-law, and best friends, are integrated into the narrative to understand Hustvedt's universe from different points of view.The story unfolds as this “dance around the self” to which the title refers and which the author herself cites. There is a biographical will, but not from a chronological or encyclopedic approach. The main priority is to penetrate Hustvedt's thought and understand how the essayist's entire intellectual corpus is formed.The documentary manages to find a tone and narrative pace that is very close to the protagonist's literature. Hustvedt assumes the narration in the first person, and the rest of the testimonies are added to build points of view, but all in a very fluid way, where images and text enter into a poetic harmony. It is not only the moments, but also the light, the texture of the image, and the meaning of the spaces. The different aspects of her professional career appear progressively. There is an internal structure that organizes the story, but it is porous to facilitate the connection between the different areas being addressed and to understand the coherence and solidity of Hustvedt's world. It mainly explores her literary creation process and, from there, the different branches of her career and research emerge: the essay, psychoanalysis, the study of neurosciences, the theory of knowledge and her desire to dilute the boundary between science and humanities, feminism and cultural inequalities. But, above all, it leaves the viewer with the possibility of understanding where her interests and sensitivity are born. Nothing is by chance. Everything has an origin and a cause.The documentary was directed by Sabine Lidl, also responsible for the documentary Paul Auster, what if? Lidl has the writer's absolute trust. The camera becomes a confidante. She has access to her home, shows the bond with Auster and her subsequent solitude in the splendid Slope Park home in Brooklyn, which they shared. Siri Hustvedt: Dance around the self is a very interesting exercise for understanding how a gaze is constructed.

The summer edition of Joc de cartes kicked off with an intensity worthy of the high temperatures. A kitchen melodrama that hooked us to the show. In the Lleida Pyrenees, Marc Ribas was looking for "the best informal restaurant", a concept that, once we saw the show, seemed more like a euphemism to justify what we saw.The chapter had the most potent ingredients for conflict to erupt. Firstly, and as a determining factor, a dirty kitchen. Nothing causes more fascination than discovering a disgusting workspace. The spectators' morbid spirit is activated. Television facilitates a prudential distance so that we feel far enough away from the eatery and have the peace of mind of not having to taste any dish. But detecting dirty cutlery, rusty pans, and grease-filled extractors on screen provokes that kind of guilty pleasure similar to those successful Instagram videos where they remove earwax plugs or unblock shit pipes. The viewer enjoys in an exacerbated way looking at refrigerators full of junk and poorly preserved food. And, in addition, there is a certain degree of sadism when it is intuited that the presenter and the rest of the contestants will have to eat a meal cooked in that space. On Wednesday, moreover, we reached unsuspected levels of tragedy when one of the participants refused to eat anything cooked in that establishment, and she stood with her arms folded while watching the others devour. Her husband finished it off by asking for some "courtesy" patatas bravas, which he didn't even touch afterwards. It would have been interesting to analyze what he understood by "courtesy", considering the bad vibes he poured onto the table.The other essential ingredient for drama is the family bond between participants. In this case, a triple helping. Two mothers with their children and a married couple. The closer the level of kinship, the better. Faced with criticism, in the case of mothers with their offspring, a mama bear or just daughter effect occurs that becomes wonderfully epic. They develop an extreme defense of their loved one that accelerates the conflict exponentially. In the case of married couples, there is usually one who takes on a leading role, while the other silently suffers their partner's eccentricities. The gastronomic program also becomes a kind of reality show to test the affective cracks in the sentimental union.Another indispensable requirement is that the chef Marc Ribas play a bit of the whore and the "Ramoneta": on the one hand, encourage the contestant not to ask for anything if she doesn't want to and, on the other hand, embrace the people responsible for the dirty kitchen as a sign of solidarity to alleviate their displeasure.Finally, there is another explosive factor: put an Italian chef on the show. The intensity, the swagger, the bad temper, and the lack of inhibition of those we have seen so far have increased the adrenaline in the game. If we are to endure the high summer temperatures, it's good that sparks fly on Joc de cartes.

It is fascinating how private television stations tried to disguise the scandal of the luxury penthouse that the Community of Madrid has bought to use as supposed temporary offices for President Ayuso. On Telecinco, in the magazine Vamos a ver, they made a convoluted plan with the intention of presenting it as an interesting investment. They sent a reporter to a flat for sale in the Chamberí neighborhood. They reported that it was the neighboring flat to the one in question, as if it were next door, and later we found out it was on another street. They assured that this flat was, if not exact, practically the same as the one the public entity had bought. They entered that flat with the real estate consultant who had it for sale and asked him to conduct the tour in front of the cameras. The man showed the living room, the kitchen, and the bedrooms, singing all its virtues. He spoke about the excellences of the neighborhood and the magnificent investment it represented. They also showed us the small terrace, boasting about views that were rather mediocre. That approach could easily confuse the audience, making them believe it was the Community of Madrid's flat and not a substitute to cover the issue on television. But when they asked about the price, it turned out to cost half of what they would have spent on the supposed temporary offices. It was worth three and a half million, not six. In the summer edition of Espejo público, at no time did they show images of the apartment or the building in the short time they dedicated to discussing that institutional purchase. Among the arguments of the panelists, the consideration that an apartment like that was an "element of representation" to justify the luxury was strongly emphasized.In Antena 3 Noticias, the always expressive Sandra Golpe didn't even want to take charge of that information. She gave way to a reporter to offer "other news", relegating it to a category of lesser importance. The presenter first reported that Begoña Gómez, Pedro Sánchez's wife, had recovered her passport and, immediately after, added a brief tail: And finally, after the controversy, the Community of Madrid has decided to put up for sale Ayuso's penthouse that she was going to use as an office while the works on the regional government headquarters lasted. It will be sold with four other properties. The money will be donated to those affected by the fires and to the reconstruction of the areas devastated by the fire”. Barely fifteen seconds of news that turned the six-million-euro bargain in Chamberí into an act of charity to help the victims of the fires. The scandal was closed in a few hours, without questioning the details hidden behind the suspicious purchase of a penthouse with two hundred meters of terrace. The level of inquiry and meticulousness applied to the PSOE cases contrasted with the superficial information about this case of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. But what attracted the most attention was the evident fear of the panelists to analyze the facts, with long preliminaries and many prior precautions before expressing their opinion. It seemed that they were more worried about keeping their seats as panelists than about common sense and the management of public money.

The Movistar+ platform has premiered a magnificent BBC series. It could be considered a more adult and mature version of what Merlí intended. Waiting for the Out (The Life in the Shadow) is based on the memoirs of Andy West. The protagonist is Dan Stewer, a young philosophy professor who leaves university to teach in prison. The decision, which is incomprehensible to his brother, connects with some of his most intimate fears. The son of an abuser and a delinquent, he is one of the few men in the family who has not ended up behind bars. His father, his uncle, and his brother all spent time incarcerated. Dan is the only one who seems to have escaped a cursed inheritance. And despite everything, he resolves to enter prison in a different way. In The Life in the Shadow, the prison drama takes a back seat. The protagonist is, apparently, free. But as the episodes progress, we will question this premise. Dan will converse with the inmates about Descartes or Locke and pose existential questions to them, aiming to stimulate their thinking and reflect on their circumstances. And through his interventions, he will try to understand who his father was and why he behaved the way he did. He will confront his fears, traumas, childhood memories, and unexpressed past conflicts that make him a victim of another type of condemnation, from which he doesn't know how to escape. In this sense, the series is part of the abundant body of fiction where protagonists carry wounds due to their parents.The characters are not at all stereotyped and the dialogues with the inmates are splendid. It is not a basic philosophy Wikipedia of a wise man illustrating illiterates. The more theoretical reflections overlap with the most logical miseries of a prison: the sense of justice, consciousness, guilt, the possibility of changing or becoming a better person. “What makes you be you?”, “Is your self from ten years ago the same as who you are now?” are the first questions he shares with his students and that the viewer can also pose to themselves.Life in the shadow consists of only six chapters and, despite this, you see the characters evolve in a very natural way. In the background, it reflects on masculinity, on how family can determine our destiny or the possibilities we have of breaking with the inertias we have inherited from our parents. It is a series that, once you reach the end, you can start again, because it allows you to read the subtlest details that we had overlooked.Don't miss it, because it's one of the best options this summer, even though it's not, precisely, a very cheerful or bright story. From time to time, however, it gives you a slight smile. The series poses a reflection on freedom, which goes beyond being behind bars or not, and asks us what vital circumstances imprison and limit us, even without us realizing it.

That Spanish morning magazines organize the entire television narrative against Pedro Sánchez is already a classic. Both Telecinco and Antena 3 lean to the right, and any opportunity is good to attack the socialist government. The large fires in Madrid, Ávila, and Vall d'Uixó have now become the perfect fuel to further stoke the fire with the same virulence that the forests burn.To kick off the broadcasts, they have been fueling the melodrama discourse for days. They make video clips with images of the fires and properties devastated by the flames, combining operatic chants with the ambient sound of tragedy: cries, sirens, and screams. They revel in the misfortune of people who have seen their homes burn and, even worse, expose them to contemplating the devastation with reporters digging into the wound: “We accompany them for the first time and with our camera as a witness to see their reaction upon discovering, before their eyes, the devastation of the fire”. They make them explain, in detail, every burnt space, every charred object. To add drama, they also give the names of celebrities whose properties have burned down. The fire victims, after being interrogated about their losses and miseries, are asked about political responsibles. The false idea about the prohibition of collecting pine cones and cleaning the land is constantly repeated. And they take the opportunity to attack environmentalists and the idea of climate change. It is a mantra that each interviewee reiterates. Once the drama phase is over, the insults towards Sánchez are reiterated, which is the new informative trend. Underline, subtitle and amplify the insults hurled at socialist politicians in any circumstance. “Does he avoid people?”, they caption on screen. And they transcribe each of the outbursts, however vulgar they may be. The microphones barely pick them up, but transcribed on screen and repeated in a loop, they increase the feeling of tension. “Son of a b...!” or “Dog, to jail!” are inserts that, every now and then, are added to the reports. “Does Sánchez fear contact with citizens?” is the slogan they repeated to boredom during the Andalusian elections. “Can Sánchez escape the Paiporta syndrome?”, they ask themselves as if he lived sentenced to an eternal condemnation.But what they do, in reality, is the typical exercise of exalting the masses and associating Sánchez's figure with the natural reaction of insulting him. It is the same as sports news did when, during the Process, they wondered for days and days if in the stadiums where the Spanish national team played, the stands would boo some of the Catalan footballers. It is a way of exciting the audience and creating a kind of predisposition, a logical inertia, towards insult and tension as a popular right that invariably extends. It is the way to always guarantee the news and to consolidate and normalize the image of collective contempt.

Saturday saw one of the great shows of theinfluencer Ibai Llanos. The evening of the year is an amateur boxing gala that is broadcast via Twitch and YouTube for more than eight hours. A grotesque spectacle where a selection of content creators face each other in boxing matches after months of training and fake rivalries. Digital celebrities like Plex, TheGrefg, Tati, IlloJuan, Clersss, Roro or Edu Aguirre (the latter, reporter for"The Beach Bar) face each other despite their evident lack of talent in this discipline. The evening was held at the La Cartuja stadium in Seville in front of about eighty thousand spectators who attended the party with unprecedented fervor. Huge jumbotrons and noise amplified by large speakers overstimulated the audience. Núria Marín and Javi Hoyos introduced the event. Between fights, Bad Gyal, Juanes, Anuel AA, or Lucho RK and La Pantera performed. The "bread dipped in oil" boxers entered the ring with a triumphant entrance with choreography. Plex entered as if he were a charioteer, on a winged cardboard chariot and music from Gladiator.

The United States commemorates the 250th anniversary of its independence while observing its democratic foundations in crisis. Platforms also celebrate this with some productions that revisit the nation's history with the subtle intention of reclaiming the values that are being undermined. On HBO Max, Barack and Michelle Obama have produced a series of comedic sketches together with Larry David. The actor, besides being the main protagonist, is also co-creator, co-writer, and producer alongside Jeff Schaffer, his collaborator on Curb your enthusiasm. The series Life, Larry and the pursuit of unhappiness: An almost history of America can be read allegorically. The title parodies the formula of the Declaration of Independence: “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.Larry David introduces his curmudgeonly and killjoy character into emblematic moments of United States history. The production is cinematic and features cameos from a large cast of celebrities such as Jimmy Kimmel, Kaley Cuoco, Jon Hamm, Sarah Silverman, or Rob Reiner, to whom a posthumous dedication is made. Life, Larry and the pursuit of unhappiness pays homage to history with a sense of humor while always seeking a biting contemporary reading. Not all sketches are successful, some are too long, but it has wit. Obama makes the initial presentation recalling the petty characters who have tried to prevent the progress of the United States, in an allusion to the protagonist, but it is inevitable to also think of Trump, who will become the absent and unmentionable protagonist. The past calls to him as a bad future that is inconceivable to exist. The sketch in which George Washington decides to set a limit of two terms for future presidents of the United States to guarantee the democratic health of the nation becomes visionary considering Trump's challenge this week in which he assures that he wants to run for a third term.One of the best sketches is the one that recreates the Rosa Parks episode on the bus. Traveling next to Larry David will blow up all the epicness of the woman who refused to give up her seat to a white man and became the symbol of the civil rights struggle. The whole series summarizes an alternative history of the United States where, for example, Bob Woodward will end up begging deep throat not to call him anymore to inform him about the Watergate case, we will discover the particular sense of decency of Senator McCarthy in his fall or the uncomfortable first airplane flight of the Wright brothers. Also the overwhelming pride of the mother of Jonas Salk, the discoverer of the polio vaccine. The television exercise is fun, and it turns out to be a bit paradoxical. While Donald Trump is destroying the values of the nation's founding spirit, the Obamas are rewriting its history with humor. Perhaps it's the saying that it's better to laugh than to cry.

Wednesday, finally, we saw the season finale special of Com si fos ahir. An broadcast scheduled for Monday, after being announced in multiple promotions. The broadcast on La 1 of the celebration of the Spanish national team's victory in the World Cup caused a sudden change in programming. TV3 resigned itself to subordinating itself to the grandiose television spectacle of la roja} for fear of losing viewers.

Javier Ruiz, with a tendency towards sensationalism and scandal, indignantly lamented the interference regarding the interview he was about to conduct with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, on Thursday at midday on Mañaneros 360: “The pressure in this studio is extraordinary. [...] The supervision is becoming unbearable. No supervision, no nonsense, on this program!”” To demonstrate this, he broadcast statements from the mayor of Madrid who anticipated qualifying the interview the presenter would conduct with him as a “bath and massage,” and warning that he knew they were friends and had recently had lunch together. The comment is proof of the PP's control over the lives of both. 

Telecinco has premiered a reality show to heal the family relationships of the participants in a rather bizarre way. In El camino de la verdad (The Road to Truth), five couples made up of very estranged children and parents must travel the Way of Saint James, participating in therapeutic activities that are supposed to help improve their bond. It is very possible that the premise reminds you of one of the most morbid events of recent months. The presenter is Luján Argüelles, already seasoned in this type of format. She disguises cynicism with a theatrical enthusiasm that is very effective for the network. She has the audacity to use people's misery to construct a dramatic spectacle and, on top of that, claim she is fixing their lives. A coach acts as a therapist and proposes a series of confrontational exercises so that the contestants can vent and unlock the pain they carry inside. The result is a melodrama of reproaches, panic attacks, tears, and unbearable shouting, where the viewer swallows the bitterness of the protagonists. A festival of dead grandmothers, run-over brothers, absent fathers, irresponsible mothers, heartbroken children, and neglected offspring. There are terrible stories of abandonment, negligence, narcissism, and family breakdown. What television does is turn all emotional debris into an epic of misfortune. While they make their way along the Way of Saint James as an allegory for a transformation process, the coach sets up a boxing ring where parents and children will have to vomit all their reproaches while punching a sparring partner. The organization of a live funeral is also announced, which is already predictable to be the obituary show. Along the way, some celebrities appear who have been on the cover of gossip magazines for their serious conflicts with their parents and who will give advice on how to manage family miseries.

Mediaset has already confirmed the signing of Josep Pedrerol, who leaves Atresmedia after thirteen years practicing the lowest-quality journalism. Since he is dedicated to sports, it seems harmless, but the ideological charge is always there. The media group transfer is significant: it happens after Florentino, during Real Madrid's electoral campaign, had a fit of rage with Atresmedia for having interviewed Enrique Riquelme, and chose Cuatro so that Iker Jiménez would flatter him. Curiously, now, Pedrerol is following him.Pedrerol has become famous for his circus-like talk shows, first on Intereconomía with Punto pelota and later on Atresmedia with El chiringuito. Always full of shouts and scoldings, with vulgar and sexist fights and interventions. They have dubbed it an example of scarf journalism, but it has been much more than that. Social evolution has forced him to polish some of the most regrettable forms, and the passage of time has made people forget some of the most pathetic outbursts and approaches.El chiringuito has been perceived as a show of agitated gentlemen arguing, a grotesque spectacle that could seem white and innocent. But Pedrerol has disguised a lot of ideological baggage as farce and theater. Pedrerol's information factory has been a source of campaigns against players and coaches, and has managed to set the agenda for the rest of the media. Entire discussion panels dedicated to pointing out Barça stars and endless replays of images to take them out of context and manipulate public opinion. The reading of current sports affairs has always been done from the interests of Real Madrid. Pedrerol has maintained a servile attitude with Florentino Pérez. He is the journalist who has heightened the tone of informational language, and has normalized on television expressions more typical of overexcited fans. “Le ha pintado la cara” and the famous “retratado” have always sought to excite the audience through contempt. The usual exclusives, with capital letters and the sound of lightning and thunder in the background, have mostly been a piece of cake. He also cultivated the genre of the 'exclusinda', where he gave the floor to Eduardo Inda to poison the football scene.Pedrerol is the king of proclaiming not to mix politics and sports, but it has been in Jugones and in Elchiringuito where this cocktail has been most put into practice. Pedrerol orchestrated from his talk shows that Guardiola be criticized for giving speeches in Catalan in front of an international audience, he made lists of athletes who had expressed support for independence, he pointed out Barça during the Process and he scrutinized the stands of the Camp Nou with a magnifying glass. Pedrerol is the one who has done the most to politicize sports, even if it was from absurdity. We will now hear his evil and artificial laugh at Mediaset. The heir to Sálvame in a sports version will now settle into the group that has always fed on conflict and lack of scruples to continue doing the same thing it has done until now.

On Monday at noon, the shockwave of the Spanish national team's victory in the World Cup reached the sports news. The feeling of collective euphoria was a common point across all programs. But where the idea of unanimity was most emphasized was in Jugones, Josep Pedrerol's show on La Sexta's afternoon slots. “The whole of Spain vibrated with the national team. This is how Ferran's goal was experienced in... Barcelona, for example”. The "for example" tried to pretend it was a randomly chosen city, but the intention was clear. Barcelona was the first snapshot of an explosion of celebration across Spain, to which images from Madrid and Seville were later added. The program also emphasized the spirit of Spanishness that had invaded the Basque Country: “This was sung in Bilbao. Euphoria also broke out there”, they said. And they showed images of a group of boys hugging, chanting the traditional “I am Spanish, Spanish, Spa-a-a-nish!” Pedrerol insisted on this idea of absolute unanimity: “In the big cities and in the villages. Children and adults. All of Spain united by the national team”. The subsequent voice-over of the video insisted on this idea of a “united country”, always starting with Barcelona, with a girl sticking half her body out of the car to wave a large Spanish flag. Then images from Madrid, Valencia, and Badajoz were shown, and Mataró and Terrassa were incorporated among towns like Jerez de la Frontera, El Cuervo, and Sanlúcar de Barrameda. The ripple effect of Spanish pride. It is logical that, from the state's point of view, this idea of a homogeneous mosaic that does not take into account dissidences, reticences, or other sensitivities is sought. But in a subtle way, this desire to underline and exhibit Spanish fervor in Catalonia was appreciated in a program that, during the time of the Procés, exuded contempt for any claim, not just for independence, but for Catalan identity.On La 1's Telediario they used the headline "One country, one cry: champions", which also seemed to allude to this unity of feeling. However, they did include in the rundown the news about the violent attacks that had occurred in Bilbao and Navarra in areas where fans had gathered in front of a big screen to cheer on the Spanish team. Another differentiating fact of Spanish public television was the image of Pedro Sánchez's presence at the match. In the Telediario they showed the photograph of the Spanish president greeting Donald Trump in the stands. The rest of the sports programs avoided the scene and Sánchez was made invisible. Trump took all the spotlight, following his desire to appear in the photo of the champions lifting the cup. Then they say that thing about separating politics from football, but only when it's convenient and as long as it doesn't affect their ideology or their conception of what Spain should be.

Four years ago, Netflix released a series for teenagers that broke the genre's pre-established codes to explore healthier relationships. In an audiovisual market saturated with melodramas that romanticized risk-taking behaviors, mental disorders, addictions, and traumas, Heartstopper appeared. Influenced by the naive aesthetic borrowed from the comic book on which the plot is originally based, it told us the love story between Charlie and Nick, two students at a British high school. The series provided LGBTQI+ references that a whole host of previous generations had not had access to, with the aim of reflecting a safe environment for all the protagonists. Despite the clichés and the positivism that the series exuded, it did not make the mistake of depicting an idyllic world. It reflected the phobias and hostilities that unfortunately persist in society, but it showed how the creation of emotional bonds can become nuclei of protection that help in advocacy and activism. The protagonists are not outcasts forced into a drama of overcoming and solitary struggle, but a group of teenagers who have a support network of friends, family, and some teachers who help them move forward as any boy and girl of that age needs. Although neither the second nor the third season were better than the first, the series managed to sustain itself more or less according to its initial characteristics. But Heartstopper has died of success due to the Netflix virus, which injects commercial criteria and makes one forget unique qualities and authorship. The platform has finished the series with a final two-hour film. Heartstopper forever is a tedious and senselessly drawn-out drama. What they explain could be fitted into a twenty-minute episode. They have stretched the gum so much that, logically, the children have grown up in four days. The ridiculous situation of having a group of adults pretending to be minors is already happening. A film with no plot or conflict beyond an absurd couple's crisis. Heartstopper had the virtue of avoiding the clichés and misunderstandings typical of romantic comedies, defending the intelligence of characters who knew how to express their feelings well. This has disappeared in favor of drama. Of traumas that appear conveniently to construct conflicts effortlessly. Of a vague malaise that clouds the protagonists when a little suspense is needed. The sexualization of Charlie and Nick has been enhanced, with five half-dark sex scenes distributed with a stopwatch throughout the film. The classic television manual with teenagers taking off their shirts every twenty minutes and using sex as a balm to recover from tears. A tug-of-war that caused a loop of crybabies who don't stop whimpering. A clear example of how to ruin a endearing series and turn it into a bland product to squeeze the udder of Heartstopper's success.

Netflix has already released a film that went rather unnoticed in cinemas and is worth recovering if you didn't see it. September 5, directed by Tim Fehlbaum, recounts the kidnapping of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. It does so, however, from a very unique point of view: everything is explained from the control room of the American network ABC, which was there to broadcast the major sporting event. The film, therefore, does not aim to be a simple recreation of the kidnapping, but to explain how a tragedy with political and historical implications was covered on television.What the film proposes is a very interesting narrative exercise, because it combines the real images of ABC's broadcast from fifty-four years ago with recreations of the inner workings of television coverage. Practically the entire film takes place in the control room: a dark workspace, full of monitors and occupied by journalists, producers, and technicians specialized in sports broadcasts. Reality, however, forced them all to adapt to the dilemmas and informational difficulties of a much more dramatic event. It was about explaining what was happening inside the Olympic Village while the competitions were still ongoing.One of Fehlbaum's obsessions was rigor and fidelity to events, and therefore the work regarding editing is extremely meticulous. A large part of the images we see through the monitors in the control room are actual footage, which requires extraordinary synchronization with the entire recreation that is built around it. Even the real images of the broadcast with the iconic presenter Jim McKay, who broadcast the events on screen, have been respected. The performances and editing achieve constant interaction and dialogue between reality and fiction.But September 5 goes beyond the hijacking, which becomes the background motor. That broadcast marked a turning point in live retellings of tragedies. The film portrays the social context surrounding the events, with a conflicted Germany that still didn't know how to manage its past. And it also raises the television dilemmas inherent in a broadcast of this nature: the balance between information and spectacle, media responsibility in the face of tragedy and the pain of the protagonists, the medium's own influence on the course of events, and the technical intricacies that had to be overcome at a time when live satellite broadcasts were still incipient. It's fascinating to see how ingenuity compensated for everything technology has since made available to us. And how, despite the passage of years, the most difficult journalistic decisions remain the same.September 5 provokes the unease of a thriller and the emotion provided by the account of real events. A good film that reminds us that the world may have changed less than we think.

Mid-morning, the media echoed the ECJ ruling that endorsed the amnesty law. On Spanish private television, the news caused them some bewilderment. The ruling shattered their condemnatory narrative of the last nine years, and they didn't know how to manage this new informational course. The contrarian reaction became evident in the time they dedicated to the news. Puigdemont has been one of the protagonists against whom more hours have been invested, and this time, they didn't dwell much on the analysis. On Espejo público, with Griso on vacation, they opted to ask themselves: “¿Vuelve Puigdemont?” and “¿Está más cerca el regreso de Carles Puigdemont a España?” Beyond speculating on the answer, presenter Lorena García quickly turned the page on the topic to address new issues. Ana Terradillos did the same on La mirada crítica on Telecinco. As soon as the reporter, standing in front of the National High Court, announced the sentence, the presenter got down to business when it came to moving on to new morning matters: “Bueno, pues este es el titular. Y ahora les dejamos con otras imágenes de la mañana”. On Vamos a ver, the following program, they didn't say a word about the news. On Cuatro, they also wondered about Puigdemont's return with on-screen captions. On En boca de todos, the sensationalist Nacho Abad asked for a live assessment from the PP spokesperson, Esther Muñoz, who downplayed her party's interest in the judges' decisions. Meanwhile, Pilar Rahola listened, laughing, from another box on the screen. Rahola noted the spokesperson's evasiveness and, after outlining the new judicial landscape that was emerging from now on, posed a challenging question to the presenter: “¿A quién le interesa más que venga ahora Puigdemont? ¡Te aseguro que al PSOE no es!” Nacho Abad, instead of answering, abruptly ended the topic: “¡Lo dejamos ahí! ¡Lo dejamos ahí! ¡Perdonad!”, and cut the connection to address another current issue about Vox. 

In the last edition of the Oscars, the award for best documentary film was won by Mr. Nobody against Putin. The impact of the story of this high school teacher in deep Russia overshadowed another splendid documentary, nominated in the same category, which Movistar+ has just premiered: Cutting through rocks, directed by Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni. You must get to know its protagonist, Sara Shahverdi. She will fascinate you with her personality and drive. Sara becomes the first woman elected councilor in her rural village in northwestern Iran. She is a midwife, an activist for women's rights, and a tireless worker. The documentary begins by showing how, all by herself, she fixes a large iron door using an angle grinder. She also uses the trunk of a tree to level the doorframe and make the lock fit. The determination with which she will solve this problem will be maintained throughout the film. Shahverdi never stops: she advises women to claim their inheritance rights, coordinates village improvement works, gives talks at schools to encourage girls to continue studying, cares for her mother, fixes breakdowns, repairs her motorcycle... Even the viewer perceives a certain sensation of physical exhaustion just by seeing the energy she puts into improving the lives of others. The documentary is imbued with her strength.

Now that, unfortunately, fires are once again occupying a large part of the news and the debate on forest management and prevention tasks is being revived, it is opportune to recommend a documentary series from Arte France that Canal 33 broadcasts on Monday evenings. You will also find it on the 3Cat platform (not very well labeled). It is titled L’arbre qui cache la forêt and has been translated into Catalan as L’arbre que amaga el bosc. In French, it plays on the expression equivalent to ours of “trees that do not let you see the forest.”The series starts from a very attractive premise, which affects the way of narrating more than the overall content. Each chapter starts with a historic and emblematic tree from a territory: the birch of the Great North, the thuja of the Great Pacific Northwest Rainforest, the giant eucalyptus of Australia, the baobab of Madagascar, the European oak, or the ceiba of the Amazon. The tree is the excuse to explain the entire forest ecosystem that is articulated around that majestic and centuries-old specimen chosen as the protagonist. As often happens in this type of productions, it is a relaxing and privileged window to observe the world. With the giant thuja, we travel to the west coast of Canada, to a forested area of sixty-four thousand square kilometers. With the birch, we discover the surface of more than one billion hectares of boreal forest that occupies the northernmost part of the planet.The tree that hides the forest is fascinating. It goes from making us observe the most minute details, focusing the lens on the most imperceptible spores or the insects that inhabit the trunk, to the contrast of the general plan, showing the tapestry that the treetops draw or the role of the salmon-filled river in nourishing the vegetation. The work of realization and photography is so careful (and perhaps a little too color-retouched) that the image ends up looking like one of those screen saver postcards that computers offer by default, which seem almost magical in their spectacularity. Locations that, due to their imposing vegetation and the solitude of the place, also have something sublime, of hidden mystery. The dubbing into Catalan is of great linguistic richness and lends the narration a slightly affected tone to force the poetic. You get used to it easily, even though the narrative intensity is a bit exaggerated. The story is added to by the testimony of experts in that corner of the world: biologists, ecologists, activists, sculptors, mycologists, and specialists in the most unheard-of disciplines that landscape can present. From any detail almost invisible to the human eye, a whole well of knowledge grows. It is fascinating to discover the influence that the tracks of millions of reindeer have on the shape of a forest and their impact on carbon capture. The series transcends trees in particular and the forests they portray to remind us of the complexity and importance of these ecosystems. Watching these documentaries makes you understand the tragic extent of fires and the little importance we give to forests.

If you fancy a documentary series of the kind that makes you look away from the screen to stop suffering, this is, without a shadow of a doubt, The dark wizard (The dark wizard), on the HBO Max platform. It is as distressing as it is addictive. You will very possibly devour the four episodes in one go. It is the story of the mountaineer Dean Potter, an expert in free climbing and wingsuit flying. He revolutionized highline –walking on a slackline suspended between cliffs– and was the main driving force behind free BASE –a discipline that combines climbing without any safety and BASE jumping–. Potter needed risk and adrenaline. His story, told by his close friends, constantly drifts between motivation and recklessness.The series is directed by two experts in mountaineering documentaries: Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen. Beyond their talent for telling stories that hang by a thread thousands of meters high, they have the ability to be very demanding of the quality and dramatic intensity of the stories. They dose the information and the emotional evolution of the protagonists very well.The dark magician also has the virtue of revealing an inner story linked to another very famous mountaineering documentary that won an Oscar in 2019. It is Free solo, the film that recounted Alex Honnold's ascent of El Capitán, a vertical wall in Yosemite National Park, without ropes or any safety system. That documentary showed above all the psychological dimension of a protagonist who, at any moment, could fall to his death in front of the cameras. What was not explained in that documentary now emerges in the HBO Max series. In fact, Honnold is one of the witnesses who reveal, with surprising coldness, his relationship with Dean Potter. In The dark magician the competition, not always honest, between both climbers is made clear, and how their rivalry influenced the risks that Potter was willing to take so as not to lose prominence.The documentary series explains the extreme personality of Dean Potter and leads the viewer to question the motivations of these climbers who constantly flirt with the possibility of falling into the void. Traumatic childhood experiences, lack of limits, mental health, and narcissism are aspects that run through the story and provoke contradictory emotions in the viewer. The compilation of archive images is magnificent, especially for reconstructing Potter's personality, and the metaphorical resources of birds give a more symbolic and mystical dimension to the story. From the beginning, there is a restlessness that seems to foreshadow the end. An adrenaline-fueled and dizzying documentary series that, when you finish it, reconciles you with daily routines and the peace of boredom.

Disney+ has premiered Alice & Steve, a six-episode series that tests the friendship between the two protagonists. The characters' life stage is essential to the story, as the nuances help them grow and understand their reactions. Alice faces the discomforts of menopause while working a uninspiring job and surviving family routines with enough dignity. Steve is a celebrity hairdresser, and therefore, his existence might seem a bit more glamorous. But after a bad divorce and sharing custody of the dog, his daily life has become stuck between loneliness and selfishness. The complicity between the two friends, however, fills their lives. As young people, they were a couple, but it's an anecdotal stage they mention from time to time with a sense of humor. But what seems like an indestructible friendship will only last through the first episode, when Alice discovers that her daughter has gotten involved with Steve, who is twice her age. Izzy is twenty-six years old and has just suffered a romantic disappointment, and in Steve, she sees a stability and protection that she hasn't found in the boys her age.

Netflix has just premiered Miguel Ángel Blanco: the 48 hours that changed everything, a documentary by Jon Sistiaga and Juanjo López that delves into the countdown ETA set to kill the PP councilor from Ermua after kidnapping him, in July 1997. The broadcast coincided with the anniversary, even though it is not a round anniversary: this summer it will be 29 years since that murder. The documentary coincided, with a few weeks difference, with the premiere on Movistar+ of Gregorio Ordóñez, the assassination that sparked the rebellion against ETA. The production by El Diario Vasco commemorates the attack against the PP councilor of the Donostia City Council in 1995.