Afternoons of Solitude (Tardes de soledad)

 

Director Albert Serra

AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE (Tardes de soledad)                     B+                                Spain  France  Portugal  (125 mi)  2024  d: Albert Serra

The bullfighter was bent with the bull, he cimbred his waist on the exquisite brushstroke of the right, embarked the natural with velvet caress.  And the helper.  And the chest pass in amalgam of depth and art.  And the serenity of holding a break with the pythons in centimeters of the thighs.  And the knee on the ground to screw the bull in follow-up of the deception.  And the crutch on the left again for the natural deep.  And the trench again.  And the quiquiriquí.  And the signing pass.  And scarlet flame in change of hand.  And the bull returned to deceit, seized on his flights.  Harmony, cadence, bewitchment.                                                                          —Joaquín Vidal, Spanish journalist treating bullfighting not just as a spectacle, but as a fleeting art form to be described with intense sensory detail

Any way you want to look at it, this film is shocking in every respect, yet filmed with an unflinching eye by Catalan cinematographer Artur Tort, who also co-edits the film with the director, using three outstanding cameras and magnificent sound equipment, where the overall work is so much more impressive than in his subsequent work in Lav Diaz’s Magellan (Magalhães) (2025), and despite the devastatingly horrific nature of some of what we see, it’s presented with unmistakable elegance, brutal and poetic at the same time, begging the question, is it art or is it barbarism?  A formally minimalistic, documentary portrait of the legendary twenty-nine year old, still-active Peruvian bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey (Home - Web oficial del torero Andrés Roca Rey), the equivalent of Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo in the soccer world, this is the director’s first nonfiction film, listed at #1 from Cahiers du Cinéma: Top 10 Films of 2025, #6 from Film Comment: Best Films of 2025, and #6 from Richard Brody: New Yorker: The Best Films of 2025, and winner of the Golden Seashell for top prize at Spain’s 2024 San Sebastián Film Festival.  It’s a film about archaic rituals and tradition, about the people who know a lot about it, and are the specialists in their field.  The ornate and colorful style may remind viewers of Pedro Almodóvar’s Matador (1987), where Roca Rey is considered the world’s most famous matador, as the film immerses itself in the old-fashioned world of the bull ring, pitting one man alone against the immense power of a bull, where it’s a battle to the death, though the odds are stacked against the animal, bloodied by a series of lances into the spine or shoulders prior to the final few passes, eventually falling to their deaths, exposing the brutality of the sport, which is why bullfighting is illegal in most countries with the exception of specific regions of Spain, Portugal, France, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador, where it is viewed as an essential, historic cultural event, appealing more to those on the right wing, who view male virility and macho tradition as a form of nationalist expression.  No argument is made here, making no overt comment about bullfighting, with no talking heads promoting any of the various points of view, instead it is a pure cinematic exhibition playing out onscreen as it happens inside the ring, where you can hear but never see the crowd, using a repetitive style that allows viewers to enter the near hypnotic relationship between the matador and the bull, where the emphasis is on the developing psychological standoff, relying upon skill and agility in his maneuvers and his elegant use of the cape, typically killing the animal with a single sword-thrust that leads to its collapse.  The danger to the matador is equally intense, as bulls occasionally gore them, or flip them upside down, with the opportunity to stomp them to death, or pierce their hearts or lungs, even subjecting their faces to their horns, and while never mentioned in the film, there are famous matadors who died in the ring, one during a live television broadcast in Spain, Víctor Barrio, a 29-year old Spanish matador who was killed in 2016 when a bull’s horn pierced his chest in front of live spectators, dying just a few minutes later.  Balancing the graceful choreography with the brutality, exposing an extremely stylized ritual, and the insane courage that someone must have to stand face-to-face with such a massively powerful animal, this is a movie about looking death in the eye, knowing the risks, yet exposing themselves anyway while defying the possibility of dying.  When Roca Rey is badly injured by a bull, his first reflex is not to look for a doctor, but to go back into the arena bleeding hard to become victorious against that same bull in front of a delirious crowd.  Tradition and performance, also history and the present are so directly interwoven into the film, where the very different reactions indicate that Serra has in fact found the right balance, neither a clear glorification nor a strong condemnation, rather somewhere in the middle, offering an invitation to reflection.

In a sport loved by Hemingway, Picasso, Dalí, Goya, Lorca, Gustave Doré, and Manet, recalling Hemingway’s 263-page 1932 essay Ernest Hemingway DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON (pdf), which likely influenced the title, all seeing the beauty, tragedy, and even mysticism in it, the film offers no history or backstory, but simply places us inside the spectacle of the ring, exposing the ceremonial splendor and devastating brutality from extremely close range, where the camerawork is simply outstanding, offering astonishing views of such a controversial sport, as we hear the groaning sounds of the matador encouraging the bull, and the exhaustive snorts of the animal, elevating what we see to performance art.  This sport goes back to Roman gladiator entertainment when slaves were forced to battle wild animals in a Colosseum ring surrounded by a hyped up and frenzied crowd, while bullfighting in Spain goes back to the 8th century, going through various iterations of banishment and public performance, revived in the 18th century, where Seville has been credited with founding modern Spanish-style bullfighting.  The great Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura made his feature movie debut in a film centered around bullfighting, LOS GOLFOS (The Delinquents) (1960), the first Spanish movie filmed entirely on location, while Italian filmmaker Francesco Rosi made THE MOMENT OF TRUTH (1965), an equally compelling elegy to a great bullfighter.  Remaining controversial throughout the centuries, most would probably find the sport abhorrent, where killing an animal for sport is the Spanish working class equivalent to the aristocratic tradition of British fox-hunting on horseback, or the pheasant and rabbit hunting seen in Renoir’s THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939), with hounds chasing after them until the animal is shot, effectively becoming a symbol of the callousness, moral decay, and frivolous nature of the upper class, while also paralleling the slaughter of the coming war (WWI).  But this is much more bloody and brutal, featuring massive animals weighing over 1000 pounds literally dripping with blood, where it can be seen as grotesque, but that’s where the aesthetic artistry of the filmmaker gives this a different sense, as it’s unflinchingly visceral, seductive and distancing at the same time, almost like a religious experience, a glimpse of the sacred and the profane, or a transcendent search for the sublime, always shown with a painterly gaze.  Seen through the eyes of the bullfighter, with his unusual posture, extravagant poses and facial expressions, where it’s all about agility, rhythm, and timing, much like a ballet dancer, we also hear the sounds of the spectacle, accentuating the intimate language between the matador and the bull, as well as the encouraging cries of his handlers nearby, who are themselves lesser-scale matadors and can be heard in a running dialogue contemptuously insulting the bull, using the most profane language, while also heaping the most effusive praise to the matador.  We hear the aura that still permeates around the figure of the bullfighter, as we follow his charismatic presence to his limousine, hotel room, and dressing room, exposing his many behind-the-scenes rituals, drinking water out of a silver cup on the sidelines that no one else touches, always surrounded by an exclusively male support staff, where he’s treated like a rock star.  Mostly eliminating the introductory ceremonial splendor of the processional sounds of the trumpets before entering the ring, instead Serra pays particular attention to the moments just before the death of the animal, who by this time is physically exhausted, where the camera just lingers, as the matador exhibits fearlessness and showmanship by turning his back to the animal to recognize the audience with a salute, literally standing just a few feet in front of the animal, then turning with the red cape behind him, the object the bull is charging, taking so many risks, but it’s all part of the operatic spectacle in this macabre dance of death.  The closeness the matador comes to the animal is nothing less than shocking, which is part of what makes this film so uniquely compelling.     

Filmed in the grandest arenas of Madrid, Seville, and Bilbao, where the sport is currently in freefall in Spain, with the number of fights cut in half in the last 20 years in a trend that is only continuing, essentially abolished in Catalonia where no fights have occurred since 2011.  In Barcelona, a cinema within a shopping center lies at the exact spot where one of its three bullrings once existed.  The Catalan filmmaker is a graduate of the University of Barcelona, whose style relies upon the acute powers of observation, where there are definitely a few moments in this film that are staggeringly difficult to watch, as the barbarous nature of how the animal is treated—and filmed—is openly on display, where the blood never stops flowing, literally becoming a ritualistic sacrifice and public spectacle, where especially chilling are those close-ups just after the animal has fallen, often going through convulsive twitches, as we literally see him put to death with a knife directly into the skull, severing his spinal cord while writhing in agony, as ropes are attached to the horns before he gets dragged out of the ring by a team of horses.  This is not for the faint of heart, completely defying conventional wisdom, as animals are definitely harmed in the making of this film, which is rarely seen anymore.  That, by itself, is grotesque, but that is not all we see, where you have to put the entire film in context, revolving more around the psychological mindset of the matador, including the rituals in preparation for the battle, crossing himself three times before he puts on his jacket, humbly kissing the rosary chain with the cross, addressing many prayers to God and the Virgin, while kissing a weeping Madonna portrait, but above all he exudes calmness and seclusion, never allowing us into his world of single-minded focus, accentuating his ability to read the bulls, knowing about them in great detail, including who their breeders are.  What stands out is his extraordinary concentration, as he has to please the crowd by making it a good fight to the finish, where despite the massive loss of blood, these bulls amazingly keep charging and never seem to give up, as they are bred and trained for this unique moment.  The title does say it all, as in the ring, while there are plenty of others around to distract the animal when necessary, it’s all about the bravery of one man alone, where he has to accentuate that fearlessness by coming so close to death himself, always viewed with elegance and grace, while at the same time the camera brings viewers closer than they could ever be in real life, a directness that only cinema can produce.  That’s the mesmerizing aspect of this, as it simply takes us where no one else has ever been.  As if to counterbalance the violence of what happens in the ring, there is a score by Barcelona-based composer Marc Verdaguer, but it’s heavily overshadowed by the calming elegance of the Valse Triste by Sibelius, Jean Sibelius, Valse Triste (orch.Herbert von Karajan) YouTube (6:21), which just sounds otherworldly in this environment, yet the pièce de résistance is the Jefferson Airplane from 1967, specifically guitarist Jorma Kaukonen’s solo piece Embryonic Journey YouTube (1:52), which plays as he’s getting dressed against a white backdrop in that tightly fitting, heavily embroidered, brightly colorful and extravagantly decorative, sequined costume, which is its own ritual, looking like something Goya might have painted.  Roca Rey has his own brushes with death, getting gored on one occasion, getting pinned against the boards in another, and nearly mauled, but he escapes with his life, saved by the quick actions of his team, where you wonder if this film would have been made if he hadn’t survived, where we’re left with this ominous feeling that something could always happen inside the ring.  So in a sense this is a snuff film, much like many National Geographic television episodes that routinely show animal killings in the wild, revealing the catastrophes of nature, but this accentuates the psychological interplay between the immense size of the bull and a lone matador who puts his life on the line every time he enters the ring.  Yes, it’s all stacked in his favor, and it’s a cruel exhibition, but there’s also extraordinary beauty to be found, where that stunning aspect alone is the highlight of this film.       

Note

In 2015-16, at the age of twenty, Andrés Roca Rey was listed as the worst matador of all time by the British tabloid The Sun, earning a reputation early in his career for an intense, high-risk style that resulted in a remarkable number of serious injuries and high-profile gorings.  In each of his first five bullfights, he was gored five times, with multiple, rapid-succession injuries including losing two teeth after a bull hit him in the mouth, while the next time his jaw shattered, suffering another goring in the mouth, and then sustaining a 10cm-long injury in the buttock region with a severed abdominal muscle, as he was catapulted into the air and transported to the hospital.  However, this only trajected him into eternal fame, as Roca Rey would later fight hundreds more bulls, and today he is known as the only matador who can fill Spanish stadiums on his own.  Capturing him at the peak of his powers is like filming Messi or Michael Jordan at the apex of their careers.  

White God (Fehér isten)

WHITE GOD (Fehér isten)         B            
Hungary  (121 mi)  2014  “Scope  d:  Kornél Mundruczó                 Filmpartners [Hungary]

It’s no secret that after the films I’ve made thus far, I am turning towards genre experiments. The first installment of these is White God, inspired mostly by preposterous and increasingly rancorous present-day social relations. In my view, parallel to the questionable advantages of globalization, a caste-system has become more sharply defined: superiority has truly become the privilege of white, Western civilization, and it is nearly impossible for us not to take advantage of it. Yes, us. After all, we are the members of this privileged mass. Hence, I would like to create a film which allows a glimpse of the passions raging on the other side, criticizing our detestable self-confidence, full of lies and lopsided truths, set on domesticating the minorities while actually wishing only to destroy them, hypocritically denying inequalities, not believing in either peace or in peaceful cohabitation. Nevertheless, I have chosen animals as the subject instead of minorities. I did this, because I wanted to focus freely on this sensitive subject; as freely and with the least amount of taboos as possible. Therefore, I tell the story of animals, a dispossessed species that was once man’s best friend. But man has betrayed them, and in turn, they revolted against their former masters and companions in order to validate their existence.

The film can be described by mingling the words adventure, revenge, rebellion, and heroism. I would like the topoi of vengeance films and the allegorical qualities of animal stories to merge in this film in a dynamic, thrilling, and undeniably emotive way. There is no question that when faced with betrayal and friendship, the audience must take sides. I would like Lili, the thirteen year-old girl, to be our mirror. Through her actions, we will be confronted by the mechanism of confabulations. Her coming of age will be the alarming example of what we hope never to raise our children to become. Still, because Lili is a courageous girl with a pure heart, in the end, she is brave enough not to step in line ... our line; the line of fathers and parents. She has the courage to rebel and contradict, to lay down her arms, even at the possible cost of her own life.

My goal is for us to root for Hagen and Lili together. For Hagen to fight back; for Lili to understand that Hagen’s rebellion is just. By way of this, we too can be cleansed and return home with the knowledge that the decision is in our hands: we have the choice not to become phony, deceitful adults. This film interweaves melo-drama with the characteristics of adventure and vengeance movies. My intention was to demonstrate that mankind and beasts share the same universe. Only if we are able to position ourselves in the place of different species do we have the chance to lay down our arms.

─Director’s Statement, Kornél Mundruczó

While an entire industry has arisen around animation or computer special effects in movies, less noticeable are the use of animal trainers, especially when considering how minimal their influence usually is when conceiving the artistic vision of a film.  Perhaps more so than the director himself, the driving force behind the success of this film must be attributed to animal trainer Árpád Halász and animal department coordinator Teresa Ann Miller, as the performances from the more than 280 dogs are shockingly convincing, both when seen individually, but also collectively as a group, where the choreography of the animals is so uniquely original that it harkens back to the extraordinary artistic vision of recently deceased Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó, to whom this film is dedicated, whose films THE RED AND THE WHITE (1967) and RED PSALM (1972) feature breathtaking camera shots of horses, where no one choreographs the movements of horses like Jancsó.  While Kornél Mundruczó is a prominent Hungarian director whose last five features have all played and/or premiered at Cannes, it’s still somewhat surprising that this film was chosen as the Best Film in the Un Certain Regard category that included Lisandro Alonso’s JAUJA (2014), one of the highest rated films at Cannes from 2014, Cannes critics ratings, (especially considering the Jury President was fellow Argentine director Pablo Trapero), but also Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure (Turist) (2014) and Wim Wenders superb documentary The Salt of the Earth (2014) that was awarded a special prize.  That said, the story bears a startling resemblance in theme and spirit (not to mention a title inversion) to Sam Fuller’s WHITE DOG (1982), as both are allegorical comments on the human condition, where the treatment of dogs is a harsh reminder of how we view and treat minorities, as if they are a subhuman species.  While the dogs are extraordinary, along with the cinematography of Marcell Rév, the humans in the picture never rise above stereotypical depictions, where the beautiful handling of the animals is undermined by the poorly written performances of the humans, especially the male characters who come across as heavy-handed brutes, a common characteristic that recurs in every Mundruczó film, perhaps systematic of the ultra-repressive, male dominated Eastern European political regimes. Nonetheless, these poorly written characters undermine all of Mundruczó’s efforts, as they appear one dimensional and overly simplistic, lacking the kind of complexity most of us witness every day, where humans are instead perceived as a work in progress.    

What perhaps distinguishes this work is its adherence to the horror genre, especially the rebellion of a mistreated animal species, using a sci-fi twist that veers into Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), becoming an apocalyptic cautionary tale.  While its aim may be to peel back a layer of grotesque human behavior, it lacks the depth and poetry of Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), arguably the greatest animal movie ever made, defined by the extraordinary breadth of its grace and compassion, and instead provides a steroid-fueled version of unleashed anger gone amok.  At the center of the film is a dog named Hagen, where everything that happens is seen through his eyes as he goes from one harrowing adventure to the next.  Initially he is the companion to Lili (Zsófia Psotta), a child of divorce, a young, somewhat sullen 13-year old girl who is seen being dropped off by her mother with her estranged father Dániel (Sándor Zsótér), where friction immediately develops as he lives in a building where dogs are not welcome.  Neighbors complain, Dániel denies he has a dog, forcing Lili to lock him up in the bathroom, which of course leads to continual barking coming from his home, which she’s able to calm by playing her trumpet.  We discover they are in the center of an even larger controversy, as Budapest is charging a government imposed “mongrel” fine, an exorbitant tax to own mixed breed dogs, preferring pure bred, pedigreed dogs, causing owners to unload their mutts onto the street to avoid payment, where the animal shelters are soon overrun, creating an epidemic of wild dogs running free.  Following an incident in school where Hagen’s presence nearly gets her kicked out of the band, where her music instructor refuses to allow a dog, Lili runs out of options.  Despite fighting desperately to hold onto him, finding the ban cruel and hurtful, as dogs offer a friendship often lacking in society, her father forces Lili to get rid of the dog, leaving him on the side of the road and driving away, forcing Hagen to fend for himself.  Like a subspecies of creatures, the stray dogs are forced to survive against impossible odds, constantly chased by sadistic dogcatchers, where they quickly learn evasive maneuvers.  The audience is quickly sucked into an “us against the world” mentality, as the dogs are besieged at every turn by a rigid authority that wants to get rid of them.  Hagen’s cycle of survival is emotionally taxing, as at first he survives by his wits, gaining the audience’s sympathies, often through humorous methods before being tricked by an underhanded street beggar that sells him to a ruthless dog fight trainer who’s only interest is making money, converting Hagen into a ferocious Alpha male that is brutally trained to rip any opponent to shreds or be killed himself. 

Other than the blunt realism of PLEASANT DAYS (2002), which remains arguably his best film, Mundruczó has used artificiality to almost mythic effect, where JOHANNA (2005) is the most uniquely outrageous, a full-blown 20th century expressionist opera on sin and redemption, while the stunning visual beauty of DELTA (2008) defies the Edenesque brutality that follows, all suggesting a world gone wrong, a poetic variation of Paradise Lost.  Similarly, WHITE GOD turns into a nightmarish fever dream where Hagen’s transition from affectionate pet to mad dog killer defies belief, escaping from his cage where he’s continually seen wandering desperately through a jagged urban wasteland charged with ever more difficult obstacles to overcome, eventually captured yet again, placed in a kind of solitary confinement for obstinate dogs, a private room that may as well be a doggy death row where he witnesses another dog being put to sleep, where incredibly Hagen glances up at a television playing Tom and Jerry cartoons, perhaps a wry comment on how easily we’re appeased while surrounded by human savagery.  Apparently this is the inspiration he needs, as literally moments from suffering a similar fate he leads a death defying escape, causing a canine revolt on the proportion of the Spartacus (1960) slave rebellion, where the chaos that ensues takes the city by storm and the stunned populace by surprise, where the city is literally overrun by wild packs of liberated dogs, all of whom have been treated with sadistic brutality and malevolent disdain.  Led by Hagen, the unleashed animal fury of hundreds of mixed bred dogs racing through the streets in mass is an impressive sight, like water gushing through a sudden opening in a dam, where the accompanying surge of freedom couldn’t be more powerfully expressed.  This kind of metaphorical furor must resonate even more powerfully in Eastern Europe where so many nations were forced to submit to a post-war Soviet military presence, leading to lengthy periods of occupation.  Unfortunately, the film meanders into mystifyingly strange territory, where the human presence simply deflates the build-up of energy, resembling the mayhem in the streets caused by King Kong (1933), “often imitated, never equaled,” or GODZILLA (1954), where Dániel is actually seen with a Rambo-like flamethrower to protect himself against this formidable enemy, adding a cartoonish element to an otherwise riveting moment, leading to an ultimate showdown between man and beast.  While the idea itself can be dramatically compelling, the execution leaves something to be desired, lost in the reverie of a childlike innocence where a naïve hope becomes the only option.  The final sequence is a stunner, filled with sorrow and pity, which may pull at the heartstrings while viewers may also be equally astounded at how they could pull it off without CGI effects.  The human depiction is overly predictable, while giving human traits to animals is always a precarious ordeal, yet the film does offer a voice to the voiceless, where it at least hopes to build empathy for those who have been mistreated and brutalized the most, where their marginalized status is seemingly taken for granted in the growing complacency of the modern world.