Was it necessary to make another series about the Assunta case?

Like the killers, the showrunners return again and again to the crime scene. Carles Porta premiered on TV3 on Monday, April 29 Tor, his thousandth review of the events that shook this Pyrenean village in the nineties. Meanwhile, the dramatization of the Asunta case has been a success on Netflix, which has already had one done Real crime documentary 2017, What the truth hides: the Assunta case (Operation Ninefer). The platform follows a lineBody on firewhich is also a fictionalized version based partly on the episodes he devoted to the issue Same as porta a Crimes.

Was another series about the death of Assunta Pastera necessary? The same event can inspire countless works that approach it from diverse and complementary perspectives. But Netflix's new production raises some questions about exploiting this type of dark reality as entertainment. It was broadcast on Antena 3 in 2017, the previous series on the subject, What the truth hides: the Assunta case(Operation Navar) It was officially introduced as the first Real crime On the open TV screen. It also meant the non-fiction debut of one of the most powerful producers in the Spanish audiovisual ecosystem, Bamboo, best known for his melodramatic series such as Cable girls I velvet. One of the company's founders, Ramon Campos, was directly involved in its development Real crime Major and signed an unexpected name to direct him, Elijah Leon Semenyaniresponsible for such wonderful films as a map I Notes for a heist movie, and was crafted in a way that the documentary was understood far from the usual sensationalism of tabloid journalism. That first batch of What the truth hideswhich can now also be retrieved on Netflix, stood out for the precision of its practice Real crimefor the attention you paid to the victim and the willingness to question some aspects of the case.

A lot has changed since release seven years agoOperation Ninefer. he Real crime It became a hugely successful format. Rosario Porto, the main accused in the death of her daughter Assunta Pastera, committed suicide in prison in 2020, when almost no one doubted her guilt. Ramon Campos has once again committed to this new approach to crime, but this time from the imagination. Assunta case It seeks to legitimize itself from two aspects. From the beginning, the series emphasizes its adherence to the documentary narrative, to the point that the actors and much of the structure of the series mimic the images we have seen of the police investigation and trial.

On the other hand, the inclusion of Candela Peña, Tristan Ulloa, Javier Gutierrez or Francisque Orilla, who highlight their characters, gives the series prestige in terms of acting, even though their characterizations are often on the verge of involuntary parody. This amounts to a strategy of resorting to fiction to deepen the psychological complexity of those involved in the case, especially an undoubtedly fascinating character from a dramatic point of view like Sharyn Porto, as she was known in Santiago de Compostela. We truly miss that a Galician like Ramon Campos did not take the opportunity to delve deeper into an essential element for understanding a person like Porto: his “class arrogance” and “exaggerated awareness of the social position he occupies” in the Galician capital, as she describes. Berta Davila in an excellent article A Public square.

Assunta Young Fan Pastera Porto

But the ultimate triviality ofAssunta case It falls on forgetting the victim of the crime. No doubt the series is partly opting for discretion when it decides to leave the girl drugged and nearly suffocated by her parents out of the picture. But, in the same way that the Alcácer case led to a feminist revision of the narrative surrounding the behavior of the murdered girls, it would be interesting here to delve into the racist background, not only after the murder, but also in secret or concealment. Underrated in the talk about Assunta Yongfang Pastera Porto, she was born in Yongzhou and died at the age of only 12, in Galicia, in 2013.