© Films Boutique
Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude is a provocative, and unsettling documentary that explores the ‘art’ of bullfighting. While the ethicality of bullfighting hovers constantly over the film, Serra resists direct moralizing. He offers a raw, sensorial exploration of masculinity, performance, and spectacle, letting the audience sit with their own judgments. It becomes a strange, gorgeous character study of one man, bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey, and the hypermasculine, flamboyant culture that celebrates and consumes him.
Original Title: Tardes de soledad
Directed by: Albert Serra
Year: 2024
Country: Spain, France, Portugal
Length: 125 minutes
The film opens with what might be its only explicitly guided moment: a lone bull, centered in the dark, its breathing loud and anxious, its eyes flicking nervously into the camera. Serra, alongside composer Marc Verdaguer, overlays this with swelling, ominous music, inviting viewers to consider the bull’s perspective. It is a powerful and striking start, but the film quickly shifts its attention.
From there, the protagonist emerges. Andrés Roca Rey, the Spanish matador star, appears glittering in his extravagant bullfighting attire. Serra’s camera often lingers on Rey in intimate, sweaty spaces, squeezed into a cart with his all-male entourage or lounging in hotel rooms with his bloodstained suit still on. These moments simmer with a charged, masculine energy. Rey’s crew showers him with praise laced with erotic undertones. “You blew their minds… you think we shut their mouths? Next one, they’ll be sucking you off. All of them.” They repeatedly exalt his “balls,” using the word like a mantra to capture both his literal courage and his symbolic manhood.
Outside, protesters shout and march. Animal rights demonstrators occasionally appear in the frame, highlighting the tension and public controversy surrounding bullfighting. Still, Serra remains observational and holds back from presenting an argument.
The bullfighting sequences themselves stand at the center of the film. Serra’s camerawork is astonishing, zooming through the arena with grace and menace, offering many different angles and perspectives. The tension builds as the bull’s audible pain fills the soundtrack and Rey’s face contorts in a feverish, almost possessed expression. The crowd erupts in cheers as Rey plunges his sword into the bull’s brain, transforming him into a figure of superhuman masculinity in their eyes.
Afternoons of Solitude does not provide easy answers. Serra draws viewers into a space of fascination and discomfort, blending violent spectacle with the eroticized adoration of masculine performance. The film’s patient pacing, meticulous visuals, and uncanny attention to physical surfaces and sensations create a work that lingers long after the final scene. It haunts, provokes, and leaves questions that refuse to be neatly resolved.
Afternoons of Solitude screened at the Visions du Réel 2025 as part of the festival’s “Highlights” selection.
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