The dinner in which Albert Serra tells the ‘Making of’ of ‘Solitude afternoons’

The dinner of prominent connoisseurs of bullfighting had an guest of honor: the filmmaker Albert Serrawhich has just released ‘Apartes de Soledad’, a unique film in its kind in which it has managed to portray the essence of what happens in the bullring. What was discussed there deserves to be told, that the readers know it. It was not a critical court, but a generous and friendly table to know more, to better understand this miracle that has led to the astonishment of the screens so many thousands of spectators.

Another filmmaker never brought about mystery so much and it is difficult for another to achieve it again. What is seen and heard in the film – a work that challenges us, goes to a movie theater – leaves you breathless. Serra has shot for more than a year Roca Rey in quotes of various squares, in the van of the gang and the hotels in which it dresses. The most desired killer by the public has allowed him to be filmed without trap or cardboard, at all times, with an admirable generosity.

There are passes that scare, there is fierceness, caught, assists, meditations and wires whose edge is loneliness. And from the more than 700 hours, Serra has extracted 125 minutes that are an elixir for eternity, an agrude cocktail of epic, of truth, of fragility even in glory. Neither refuses blood, or beauty, nor controversy. Pure emotion.

Madrid is in closed rain, but time does not prevent it and gather, around Serra’s table, Salvador Boixattorney of José Tomás; François Zumbiehlphilosopher and party theorist; Carlos Abellawriter and sage of bullfighting; Antonio Sagnierentrepreneur and collector; Alejandro del Ríophilosopher and trotta editor; Carlos Fernández Lerga and José Luis Díaz Fernández, from Peña Antoñete, and who subscribes this chronicle from the mockers of the debate, which does not happen at Agatón’s house, although philosophers abound, but in Casa Salvador, the traditional restaurant on Barbieri Street, the author of the Zarzuela ‘Bread and bulls’. Everything is art and love of art surrounds us.

Night bullfighting in the field was out

Talk Serra with the photo of Manolete’s last smile behind him. Difficult to tell here everything that was said – and what whispered and cannot be repeated – but we start with the first image of the film: a bull in the pasture, a fierce snort, of Minotaur, when breathing, haughty and nervous. Serra says that an evocation of what Chaves Nogales told Belmonte, who had the river, was rolled in the field and foured naked under the moon. They put cameras in straw castles, rolled bullfighter and bullfighter passes under a paste moon mounted in a helium balloon. A lot of beauty …! But when he filmed the truth of Roca Rey in the Plaza the filmmaker decided not to use that material because it seemed ridiculous, a game of children in the face of the truth of blood and risk. Only the bull’s plane remained. Because art is the art of crossing out. One hundred thousand euros that had been spent on those planes went to the trash (they are, for one day).

Everything is the artist’s gaze: he decided only to keep the tasks in first squares, where the bull is larger, because they made the epic of the obvious film. He thought of a duel with another killer, Pablo Aguado, but the difference in styles made him fully compatible. That material will be exposed soon next to Goya in Belgium. Talk about rock: «There is poetry in his silence, there is listening. It cost him a bit to always carry the microphone, I think he gave him modest, sometimes he didn’t put it on. There was an appointment in Seville to explain that it was fundamental. And he put it more. The result is right, the soundtrack allows even conspicuous fans to see and hear details that they could never perceive.

“Roca has a unique scenic sense”

He says of Roca and his value of law: «It has a unique scenic sense, and a commitment that gives seriousness to the party. When he suffered a fuck, he may change gestures for a minute, but immediately returns to that scenic tension, to that role, which has no other bullfighter. Boix intervenes: «There is a time when your attorney is heard that indicates: Up, up! And it is for him to look at the public, the same thing that Cepeda did with Perera, and it is a time when that gift of communication is understood ». Serra returns: «There is also some time when reproaches of the [tendido] 7 and is bewildered. In fact, he takes him after three passes. But neither in that circumstance loses its commitment, its scenic sense ». The value.

There are myths around this documentary that revolutionizes gender, it is said that Roca complained. Serra explains that he saw a mounting without sound edition, in which some things that were later perfect. The truth is that his figure is enhanced and in the delivery of the National Award of Tauromaquia his joy with the filmmaker was evident.

Violence, rawly shot, is part of the film. Many bullfights reproach it, but Serra is given: «There are ellipsis. They do not cut the ear to the living bull, who thinks is that he has not fixed in the assembly ». There are rales while they act the mulillers who leave no one indifferent. The truth looks at right. What he says about how he chooses the plans is a ‘Master Class’ adds: “All who complain that no more bullfight comes out, more fight, they are fond of those who do not like Roca.”

The gang car is a narrow scenario where the group is filled with density. Two trips make them rock after passing through the nursing and meditates on how it has been saved: “What has not happened to me …” They protect themselves, some cry, like Larita, recalling the most dangerous somersault of the killer. “We had to see the frame to frame scene to understand it well, they are tenths of a second that they put at the mercy of the bull, only that scene already deserves a documentary.” His story is a novel.

Boix: “That’s why I became amateur”

The filmmaker does not stop commenting different phases, he rejects many of the criticism because what has been shot is patent. The closed plans allow unpublished scenes, which overwhelm and have surprised the bullfights who expected a kind of retransmission of tasks. Boix says: «I have seen the movie twice and only in the second I understood why I fascinated me so much: it is what the good fans know when we attend a bad run, in which the horse falls and fails almost everything. It is when you wonder what a madman is doing, playing life and understands the true poetic of all this. Serra confirms: «It is that good there are very few, but there is emotion even if the run is not good. That is good or bad I am not interested in anything. I wanted to go to the essence of the thing and a bad run can say more of bullfighting than a good one ».

In his films the narrative is not the essential and analyzes the reasons for his gaze in the square. Serra comments that the images that are usually used to illustrate the great tasks of the figures show the bullfighter art, of course, and there are examples like the task that earned a tail to Morante. «But the value and commitment do not see them, I do not say that they do not exist, but they are not printed in the image. And they are the two aspects that I wanted to show. We had great discussions with Salvador in this regard ». It is controversial, without a doubt, but states that “a good task does not always illustrate that.” Zumbeihl interrupts: «The temper is the most dangerous, there are no right. Even if you don’t see it, it is. “I don’t buy it to you,” he replies “even if it is, I say that it is not always printed in the images. I needed the danger to be seen. The debate is very intense and many defend that it is the temper, live, not on video, the one that contributes the emotion.

“I have won a lot of respect for all matters”

And we reach the end. Albert Serra continues: «I have gained a lot of respect for the matadores after making this movie. I think nobody can do what I have done, no director, I think I know Andrés Roca Rey as very few people. I know it has a lot of value but it is never reckless. This makes it cinematographically very valuable. And I know how strong his character is and I have also known his enormous modesty ». Boix and other diners comment their passes, their style, because it is fought as it is although no one is free of risk.

Zumbiehl changes the third and addresses the question to the journalist present at the table (whom he subscribes), puts him in a brete: “To deepen the controversy, it is more important to see the task of the Morante tail or the Serra movie?” And I answer: “Without a doubt, the movie.” Serra is encouraged: «This interests me. I make a movie and get to the material I have ».

The conversation derives towards the function of those attached in cases such as that of Roca Rey. Boix, experienced in taking one of the great matadores in history, analyzes that role as few, in the many details that are seen in the film, for the imprint they leave in the killer. Everyone attends. Serra recalls the recording.

Little by little, the ‘Making of’ of ‘Solitude’ afternoons’ is analyzed. The secrets of the trade of Albert Serra are in a good collection in the friendship and trust of the table of this Castizo agaton in which the love of bullfighting is the summary of all interventions. We also speak, logically of the last scene of the film, in which Roca Rey is seen in all his glory and his fragility, at the same time. It is a magical moment, with the harmony that crumbles in a misty version of Saint Sint Säens. It is time to admit the truths, the unique value, the greatness and the fragility that the matador reflects for us, the public. The great absent of ‘Aparte de Soledad’, because Roca is a hero and is alone. We all understand it. Impossible not to take off your hat.