Afternoons of Solitude

In the absence of any overt commentary, the film’s more open-ended choices in editing and music take on added significance.

The aesthetic of bullfighting is revealed to be as exquisite as it is terrifying.

Rarely have I seen a film that has combined the riveting and the repellent to such memorably strange effect.

... A doc as muscular and ferocious as the poor creatures being ritualistically slaughtered in those bullrings.

This is a major work from a richly maturing filmmaker, of a piece with his recent fiction features in its use of languid repetition and sensory saturation to pull the audience into something approaching a discomfiting dream state.

It’s a remarkable, multifarious work, and despite the controversial subject matter, it’s probably the closes thing that Serra has ever made to a crossover mainstream feature.

With his first documentary, writer/director Albert Serra ("Pacifiction") does the impossible by eliciting a modicum of understanding for a blood sport any animal lover must consider barbaric...a masterpiece of documentary filmmaking

The bloodiest film of the year exposes bullfighting in all its crudeness. [Full review in Spanish]

I would have loved to see what the rest of the critics seem to have seen in this extravagant monument to sadism disguised as an art-house documentary. I can't do it... and Serra is counting on it too. [Full review in Spanish]

As shocking and brutal as it is fascinating and almost sacred. [Full review in Spanish]