Review of “Lonely Afternoon”: Albert Serra’s Bullfighting Doctor

A poetic title, lonely afternoon (lonely afternoon), may evoke tranquility and relaxation, perhaps spent lazily reading a book in a hammock for a few hours. But don’t be fooled. Albert Serra’s stunning portrait of Andrés Roca Rey, the 27-year-old Peruvian bullfighter and the controversial Spanish heritage that propelled him to stardom, He never downplays the visceral cruelty of performance art, which is essentially a blood sport. Anyone with a low threshold for animal cruelty will find this a harrowing film, but for those with the stomach for it, this documentary is a unique study in discipline, bravado, laser focus and showmanship.

Known for minimalist slow-movie narratives that are both seductive and alienating, Serra had an international breakthrough in 2022 Pacific Ocean. This non-fictional detour exhibits many of the familiar qualities that characterize his drama, including atmospheric, quasi-dream states; long takes, often shot from fixed angles; a number of repetitions; brooding silences; and an embrace of moral ambiguity. After its world premiere in competition in San Sebastian, the film screened at the New York Film Festival, where it won the festival’s highest honor, the Golden Shell Award.

Serra has once again teamed up with cinematographer Artur Tolt to create an immersive experience that effectively draws us close to the confrontation between man and beast, while casually considering—strictly through observation— —The psychology of a taciturn subject. The film immediately establishes itself as one of the most unflinching depictions of bullfighting ever produced, and is admittedly a limited classic.

In 1986, Pedro Almodóvar humorously explored the erotic appeal of the matador and the intersection of sex and violence matadorwhile Francesco Rosi weighs in on the spectacle of the 1965 bullfight and its raw brutality critical moment. But the 1957 screen adaptation The sun still risesWritten by Ernest Hemingway, literature’s most famous bullfighting enthusiast, “Bullfighting” is widely regarded, including by its author, as a Hollywood mistake. Hemingway’s 1932 book on the subject, death in the afternoonmay have partially inspired Serra’s title.

Animal welfare protesters have led to a decline in the popularity of traditional Spanish-style bullfighting, but it remains legal in much of the country, as well as in Portugal, southern France, Mexico and much of South America. Its defenders insist that bullfighting is not a sport but an ancient ritual rooted in a proud national tradition – more festival than bloodbath. Serra ostensibly took no stance on the controversial nature of his subject, but the sharp details of Tolte’s images, with their fiery colors and graphic violence, seemed destined to inspire ongoing debate.

The film opens in what appears to be an arena holding a fence, with a close-up shot of a bull, a majestic creature with gleaming black fur. It paces in an agitated state, its flanks rising and falling with each breath, its mouth dripping with saliva. As the somber mood of Marc Verdaguer and Ferran Font’s score suggests, this is the only time lonely afternoon When we see one of the animals not charging at the bullfighter in the bullring, being stabbed with a spear, being pierced by a spiked dart called a lance, and finally being brought down by a sword embedded deeply between its shoulder blades.

In one of the doc’s frequently interspersed travel shots, Roca Rey is seen sweating in a car heading to an event in a bedazzled matador costume. He remained mostly silent while his entourage, known as the “cuadrilla”, showered him with praise and encouragement. The fact that these guys spend a lot of time marveling at his massive balls shows how intertwined bullfighting and machismo are.

The film includes extended footage of major bullfighting events in cities such as Madrid, Seville and Bilbao. We see Rocare performing religious rituals before games, such as kissing rosary beads and hanging them around his neck, or touching an effigy of the Weeping Madonna and making the sign of the cross multiple times.

Serra also shows us the intricate process of traditional costumes known as traje de luces, or light suits, decorated with sequins, jewels and gold and silver threads. I admit it, I was so excited when I saw Roca Rey put on her sheer stockings and pull them up to her chest and then, with the help of a dresser, pull up her decorative pants called taleguilla as high as a corset When it gets tight, all I can think about is, “What if he gets anxious and needs to pee before he gets in the ring?”

Watch a bull goaded by cape-waving gunners, slam into the armored side of a spearman’s horse, or draw the reddest blood along its fur as pointed darts dig into its fur like flags It is difficult to spread on the animal’s fur. Even harder was watching Roca Rey run over and over again, tiring the wounded bull even more before finally delivering the fatal blow with his sword.

But there is an undeniable elegance to this barbaric spectacle, especially the way the animals’ movements echo those of the matador. He is sometimes balletic, sometimes wild, often snorting like a bull.

During the climax of the bullfight, Rocca Ray’s eyes sparkled with an almost maniacal gleam, and he never let up his enthusiasm, even when he was drunk and rarely turned his face to the cheering crowd in the stands. We see him gored on more than one occasion, and the most gruesome one is when he’s pinned against a barricade by a pair of giant horns. But the matador never loses courage, and when others may be seeking medical assistance, he goes back for more.

Of course, none of this justifies the horror of seeing an agonized bull down, defeated, still breathing with its tongue hanging out, while a daggerman drives a dagger into its spinal cord (if it survives) of. It’s shocking to witness the soul of a powerful beast being systematically destroyed, and it’s haunting to see the light disappear from its eyes. Fortunately we didn’t get to see the sight of ears being cut off as trophies, although seeing a half-dead animal tied by its horns and dragged out of the bullring by a herd of horses, leaving a trail of blood, is a sight not easy to forget. .

Serra lets the images speak for themselves, often accompanied by unsettling changes in the soundtrack. There were no comments, no characters talking, no text messages, not even Rocca Rey reflecting on his victory, his face remaining largely a stoic mask. Any thoughts on the violence we see are entirely our own and were never given to us by the filmmakers. This makes lonely afternoonIn his uncompromising way, a muscular, ferocious doctor resembles one of those poor creatures ritually slaughtered in a bullring.