Debate x NZIFF #8: Afternoons of Solitude

DEBATE X NZIFF | REVIEW | WEB EXCLUSIVE

Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickylaitheokperson | Contributing Columnist

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‘I got lucky’, pants 28-year-old Peruvian bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey, having just narrowly evaded fatality after being viciously crushed against a wall. The enraged bovine that did this to him is still bleeding to death. His subalternos zap in with testosterone-boosting compliments about his abs, his truthfulness, and the size of his cojones — “glazing”, I think we call it — and charge their fighter’s spirit during his lapse of confidence. Roca’s entourage insults the animal‘s cowardice, spurns the crowd, and continues their psychotic cheers into the sleek, spenny backseats of the matador’s chauffeur. Only when Roca leaves the vehicle, do the men quit their act and admit to the brush with death.

I didn’t need Serra’s documentary to take an explicit moral stance on bullfighting; I just wanted it to be honest. And the camera of Albert Serra and Artur Tort doesn’t hold back on showing anything (!) over the course of these three afternoons, to the chagrin of the theatre as we witnessed the playful public slaughter of a creature that, unlike its opponent, did not wake up aware that it’d die that afternoon. No wonder the controversy.

Serra is intrigued by the physical processes that contribute to a brutish artform; stretching tights while getting dressed, extending the muleta’s frame, the fighter swaying in accordance with the beast. It’s upsetting, a touch pretentious, and to be transparent with you, completely hypnotic. Though my mind drifted in the final stretch, my eyes were mostly wide open, glued to the possibility that Roca might get speared this time or the next. Bullfighting and the outrage against it pre-dates the 19th century — but bonded with our modern reassessment of masculinity, the upholding of such a deranged tradition looks downright uncanny. I only learned today that “matador” means “killer” in Spanish.