Afternoons of Solitude

For those of us who crave something different - truly different - Afternoons of Solitude grants that wish. Films like this don't come around often, and when they do, they tend to divide. Albert Serra's latest is no exception: challenging, hypnotic, and ultimately unforgettable.

The discomfort doesn't come from the bullfighting itself - at least not for me. I grew up in Spain, and bullfighting was part of the cultural fabric of my childhood. I've since come to reject the cruelty of it, but I can't help the nostalgia I feel remembering afternoons spent watching corridas with my father.

What makes Afternoons of Solitude so fascinating - and at times, hard to sit through - is the absence of narrative. Serra repeats the same bullfight, again and again, variations on a theme that grows heavier with each cycle. He's been explicit that repetition is the point - the very essence of the film.

Some critics argue that we shouldn't seek deeper meanings in this film beyond the pure recording of the human-animal fight. I disagree. When Serra calls the film "metaphysical" and says he's after whatever "truth" resides in bullfighting, you can't help but look beyond the frame.

At its core, this is a film about the human drive for perfection - that relentless, sometimes self-destructive instinct. The torero, elegant and precise, risks everything to touch transcendence. It reminded me, in its spiritual intensity, of Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev - for those who may have seen it.

But across from the torero stands another protagonist: the bull. Maybe the only animal that will continue to charge under threat rather than flee. And it's that presence - powerful, unwilling, tragic - that stains the torero's pursuit. His art, his perfection, is built on the suffering and death of another. What is that if not a metaphor for humanity's endless ambition, achieved at the expense of nature?

And perhaps, despite the film's title, the afternoons of solitude aren't the torero's at all. Perhaps they belong to the bull - the loneliest figure in that arena.

To me, Afternoons of Solitude also echoes the moral confusion of the world we live in - how beauty, power, and image can distort our sense of right and wrong. As a member of the audience, you can't help but care for the torero, as you should. But in doing so, you almost forget who began this fight.

For those of us who long for something different-truly different-Afternoons of Solitude delivers that wish. Films like this are rare, and when they appear, they tend to divide. Albert Serra's latest work is no exception: defiant as a duel under the sun, hypnotic as a silent prayer, and unforgettable as a scar on memory.

Serra takes a risk-and wins-with tightly framed, deeply intimate shots that draw us into the drama unfolding in the sand. These are not mere images, but visions that burn into the retina: the brutal goring, the exact instant the sword seeks its mark. There is violence, yes, and there is blood, but never indulgence; instead, there's a raw, essential beauty that transcends the act itself.

Balanced between art and discomfort, Afternoons of Solitude is a work of cinematic freedom and a total immersive experience. A journey in which any viewer with sensitivity-even without a taste for bullfighting-will find a profound truth, as ancient as the ritual itself.

At first I dismissed this movie, with its repetitive capturing of the spectacle of a Spanish bullfight, where the bull is already injured and certain to be killed in a brutal way. The documentary focuses on the hunter and the hunted, the dance of mortality and winner and loser. While the stadium audience cheers off-camera. The set-up reminded me of movies of Ancient Rome, like Gladiator, where the those who are about to die are thrown to the lions, the lions having the advantage, like the bullfighters here, and the stadium audience sitting in glee, and thrill as to whose blood will be spilled. We, the cinema audience, are also lulled into this dance of death, and the animal grunts (bull and matador), the posturing and angling (bull and matador), the aggression and intimacy of a fight to the death are repeated in various arenas and it is hypnotic. You don't want the matador to be injured, and yet he takes such risks.

So, I said that I almost dismissed this film, but as I have been thinking about it since, I feel Serra has captured very important themes in this very focused matador film. He captures the bravado and judgment and hubris of the hunter (the matador), where the opponent is "bad" and deserves to be killed. Take this male aggression out of the bull-fighting arena and you will see it all around the world, and it is cheered on when it is seen in leaders who belittle the "bad" guy or teach them a lesson. You might say that the animalistic side of human nature that wants blood, revenge and wants to take a victory lap and be applauded for such is captured.

The matador believe he is incredibly courageous ("you've got balls bigger than this stadium"), and his worth comes from this dance of death. I do not support and encourage aggression or bullying, so this was an insight into an atavism of male aggression that is celebrated in Spain in the bullfighting arena, and is perhaps representative of the bloody history of the country as well (the inquisition, the conquistadors killing many in the Americas in the name of their King and God). So, indirectly, Serra might be showing us a part of the soul of Spain and its still preserved rituals based on violence and aggression that are still celebrated.

Winner of the Golden Shell at the 2024 San Sebastián Film Festival, this documentary film, written and directed by Albert Serra, hypnotically and soberly immerses us into the world of Peruvian bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey. The film patiently and meticulously observes his profession, his rituals, his subtle gestures, his silence, and his constant exposure to danger-all under a contemplative gaze that avoids both glorification and judgment.

The title feels very fitting, as it not only reflects the symbolic confrontation between man and beast but also suggests a broader reflection on vulnerability, tradition, and death. Serra does not indulge in absolute idealization of the bullfighter: he also gives space to the bull, observing it with respect, turning it into another character one that, as always, is destined to perish.

This is something many bullfighting films forget or evade: here, the animal is not just an obstacle or a symbol but a real, living creature that breathes, feels, and suffers. And this balance is the documentary's greatest strength it is neither pro-bullfighting nor anti-bullfighting. It inhabits a neutral, contemplative space where the viewer can admire the bullfighter while simultaneously questioning the nature of this "spectacle."

The cinematography is stunning-every shot is meticulously crafted, pulling you into its hypnotic rhythm. The nearly silent narration, wrapped in immersive sound design, places us in the bullring, in the dressing room as he suits up, in the pre- and post-fight conversations. The first half felt visually and emotionally powerful, while the second half becomes somewhat repetitive. Trimming about 15 minutes could have made it more accessible to general audiences.

Still, this is a valuable, provocative, and beautifully ambiguous documentary.

In summary, Albert Serra delivers a hypnotic and respectful documentary that portrays bullfighter Roca Rey without mythologizing him while also giving a voice to the bull. The film observes without judgment, with austere, intimate, and sonorous direction. Though its second half falls into repetition, its neutral and contemplative gaze makes it a provocative and unusual work.

Albert Serra's Tardes de Soledad documentary sets out to capture the intensity of the Spanish corrida de toros, but its suffocating style strips the art form of meaning. Shot almost entirely in cropped, tightly framed images, the film successfully conveys and amplifies the bull's raw power. Soon enough, though, the device reveals its real function: to make space for Serra's fixation on prolonged close-ups of bulls' death twitches after the sword has been placed.

It feels less like aesthetic discipline than a calculated pretext. By keeping every moment claustrophobic, Serra makes the death throes appear integral to the film's language. If he had shown the lidia in wide, generous shots and then suddenly zoomed in only for the spasms of dying animals, it would have looked gratuitous. Instead, the close crop becomes the default, turning mortality-not artistry-into the film's center of gravity.

The casualties of this approach are glaring. Ninety-five percent of viewers will leave with no sense of the impact Roca Rey has had on the corrida in the decade since his alternativa, no feeling for the emotional weight of a faena, and no grasp of the geometry of the passes or the beauty they create. Key moments vanish, like the way the matador is impacted by jeers of the obnoxious torista afición who reside in tendido 7 at Las Ventas in Madrid. These are layers that make the corrida profound; Serra edits them out of existence.

The repeated Roca Rey "in the van" sequences were dispiriting. In an era when the stomach-turning spectacle of sycophants fawning over US President Trump is unavoidable, watching a cuadrilla indulge in a smaller but no less obvious version of the same behavior was revolting. Whether he encouraged it or simply allowed it hardly mattered-the stench of obsequiousness was overwhelming..

In the end, Tardes de Soledad mistakes narrowness for intensity. It reduces Roca Rey to a cipher, flattens the corrida into a one-note polemic, and leaves the viewer with little more than claustrophobia and fatigue. Anyone new to the art of toreo will leave the documentary having learned little to nothing.