Albert Serra’s latest film Afternoons of Solitude documents matador Andrés Roca Rey through two days of bullfights, depicting the glory and the cruelty of the tradition with equal precision. The film screened at the 62nd New York Film Festival.
Andrés Roca Rey may be among the last great bullfighters. Since joining the scene at 19, the 27-year-old Peruvian torero is already known as the “Messi of Matadors,” famous for his uniquely effortless style. However, bullfighting becomes increasingly unpopular, and is being outlawed in more parts of the world. Critics claim the sport is barbaric, as bulls are almost always killed in or during a bullfight, while proponents see the sport as a form of artistic expression akin to a dance—Afternoons of Solitude holds both perspectives in mind to create a final ode to a tradition that may soon be extinct, for better or for worse.
Because of its taboo nature, bullfighting is necessarily an insider sport. Artur Tort’s cinematography does a lot to make the aesthetics of bullfighting clear to an unfamiliar audience. The bullfights themselves appear to exist on an ethereal plane: the camera keeps an unflinching zoom on Roca Rey, emphasizing every subtle movement that defines his signature style. The bull weaves around his body and grazes him in a series of close calls, and the motions themselves are undeniably captivating—they resemble the fight scenes in Raging Bull or the serpentine dances from some of the earliest films ever made.
The rug of beauty is pulled out every time Roca Rey prepares a killing blow, pulling out a knife to stab the bull between the shoulder blades. The film lingers on the collapsed bull, tongue out and sides coated in blood, as it gives a final pitiful plea into the camera. Each time the performance’s momentum is fully halted, made ironic by the raucous cheers coming from spectators off-screen.
A common argument for bullfighting is that the sport allows bulls to fight and die in glory. However, on multiple occasions Roca Rey is gored, only for the bull to be drawn away by his banderilleros—when the matador has an entire cuadrilla to pull him out of life-threatening scenarios, the competition hardly seems fair. But the physical toll on Roca Rey is always acknowledged, and his unwillingness to back down despite injury makes him an incredibly persuasive, if tragic, hero.
Serra never makes an explicit moral judgment on the sport, nor acknowledges its decreasing popularity: however, the title itself is drawn from Hemingway’s book Death in the Afternoon, which documents the sport of bullfighting in its heyday as something more of a tragic ritual. Likewise, the film never exalts Roca Rey: his managers speak of his international fanfare and his spectators cheer out frame, but the matador himself rarely speaks. Outside of the bullfighting arena, the only other context we see him in is the seat of his Rolls Royce—he appears to only exist as a matador, either in the ring or en route to another fight.
Afternoons of Solitude is a film that maybe shouldn’t exist. But through morally gray complicity in this centuries-old tradition, Serra has created a transient portrait of a spectacle that may be the last of its kind. Due to its scenes of unfiltered slaughter many may call the film difficult to watch; on the contrary, it may be its visceral quality of being too easy to watch that makes viewers uncomfortable—and that makes the film compelling.
Afternoons of Solitude is an official selection of the 62nd New York Film Festival, running from September 27th to October 14th, 2024.
