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‘Afternoons of Solitude’ Review: Albert Serra Observes the Matador Life In All Its Absurd Beauty and Obscene Bloodshed
Albert Serra's remarkable documentary 'Afternoons of Solitude' is a hard, hypnotic corrective to more noble cinematic depictions of bullfighting.
In the course of the next two hours, Serra’s extraordinary documentary about the ritual grandeur and violent indignity of Spanish bullfighting will never again observe its animal victims quite so intimately, but neither do we forget the shot: Even as the film’s focus shifts to the bull’s human conqueror, star Peruvian torero Andrés Roca Rey, it’s that doomed stare that haunts us. There’s little attempt to impose a narrative arc on the two-hour-plus proceedings, as the film cycles between three principal spaces: the roaring, unidentified bullrings where Roca Rey performs; the cosseted car in which he travels to and from venues, surrounded by a fawning all-male entourage; and the plush hotel rooms in which he silently assembles and disassembles his gaudy matador armor, with gleaming metallic threads and sequins often caked in blood. Serra and his regular DP Artur Tort Pujol (who also edits the film with the director) aren’t out to hide that either, eschewing grandiose wide shots for tighter closeups that isolate and accentuate the grisly physical destruction under way — often excluding the assembled crowd from the frame, leaving us feeling oddly, luridly unaccompanied in our spectatorship.
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