It’s the final television phenomenon of the season and one of the most shocking surprises of the year. How to hunt a monster is he true crime the most brutal that has been made in Spain and that is because it is a new formula and a story so incredible that it can only be true. A young YouTuber half famous, Carles Tamayoreceives a call from the former director of his city’s cinema who asks him to make a documentary about his life in order to demonstrate that he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for child abuse in a way that he believes is unfair. What the researcher and the viewer discover in real time is one of the most uncomfortable documents ever seen in our country. In addition, the documentary series constitutes a fierce criticism of a Kafkaesque bureaucracy and a slow and useless judicial system. The last 20 minutes of images will remain etched in our retinas for a very, very long time. The series was presented at the last Vitoria FesTVal and can now be seen on Prime Video.
“How will you know the truth?”
Lluis Gros He is an elderly man who ran the cinema in the Catalan town of El Masnou. It was there that 16-year-old Carles Tamayo, who dreamed of becoming a director, recorded and screened his short films. Years later, Gros was sentenced to 23 years in prison for sexual abuse of minors. The old man denied the facts and insistently called Tamayo, now famous youtuber who is dedicated to doing true crimeto make a documentary about his story: “What if what I discover turns out to be true?” the young man asks his old acquaintance. “And how will you know the truth?” the other replies, looking into the camera without blinking.
Tamayo, from the beginning of the docuseries, makes it very clear that he is not there to romanticize the image of the aggressor. There is a final decision and it is not questioned. But if the boy and his friends decide to investigate the case, it is because they find a very clear question: How is it possible that this man convicted of such serious crimes remains free? And that’s where madness breaks out, a Kafkaesque universe in which bureaucracy is inefficient and victims demand that their faces be covered while the executioner shows no shame or regret.
In the first steps of the documentary, Ramos Campos – owner of Bambú and one of the largest producers in our country, responsible for series such as The Asunta case– contacted Tamayo and offered to produce the research for sale to a platform. Was Alicia Maloone of the new directors of Prime Video, the one who saw the potential of what was being created and did not hesitate to buy the docu-series (Watch out for this woman, who will revolutionize (for the better) the Amazon platform).
And then, without knowing what is going to happen, Tamayo and his companions (they look like a kind of The Goonies but more seriously, hence the poster of the docu-series is openly 80s) addresses the life of a being with an immeasurable ego who does not hesitate to show how he continues to have relationships with minors and speaks in an openly sexual manner.
human monsters
He is a first year criminology student. reject the word monster in reference to a criminal. To do this is to distance the bad guy from ourselves; thus we feel ethically protected, we think that they are beings who have nothing to do with who we are. This is not true. Humanizing the perpetrator does not mean justifying, idealizing or whitewashing what he did.it’s understanding how the mind works, why humans do certain things and, above all, finding out how to avoid them. This grammatical detail is the only thing that can bother me in the docu-series in question. A lesser evil even if, here, it is not at any time about revolving around the psychology of the character. No, it is What Tamayo means is to repair the damage, She gets close to the victims and tracks down an extremely dangerous individual while justice looks the other way.
Carles Tamayo, the quiet man
In fact, the personality of the narrator is more mysterious than that of the protagonist of the plot. How could Tamayo have approached this individual and witnessed so many disturbing situations? “I just don’t have feelings,” Carles laughs when one of his fellow researchers asks him if he isn’t shocked by one of the discoveries they’ve just made. Perhaps that’s the key to what makes Tamayo so good at what he does. He never gives up and doesn’t let himself be manipulated.
At first, one wonders if what one sees is the work of a child who wants to be the protagonist and does not let the police do their job, but ends up thanking Tamayo for his perseverance. Without it, the pedophile, even with a final conviction and a search and arrest warrant, would not have been hunted. That is when journalism counts.
Beyond the crime
THE true crime They should aspire to do something more than describe a criminal act with morbidity and narrative tricks. These products must be transcendent beyond the specific facts. They must have a character of denunciation, of social and human reflection. How to hunt a monsterIn addition to being a fast-paced story, it opens the window into a bureaucratic system in which we are defenseless. A masterpiece that can be consumed like any action series but that also distorts the idea of social judgment. We are used to seeing false culprits stoned by their neighbors without any evidence. Here, fatally, the opposite is said. Everyone knew it, there was a constant rumor but no one said anything. Meanwhile, the hunter thought he was the good guy in the movie. Scary. Finally, the most disturbing question for anyone who has seen the entire series: who is Christian?
