Albert Serra: “I have never seen a bullfighter looking at a cell phone”

BarcelonaFilm director Albert Serra (Banyoles, 1975) premieres this weekend Afternoons of solitude, the documentary about bullfighting that won the last Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Festival. People who know that I have already seen the film ask: "but is it for or against bullfighting?" Serra's artistic choice is to portray them as we have never seen them before. With the cameras and microphones so close that the beauty and brutality are magnified. The bull and the bullfighter, two beasts, facing each other in an ancient and deadly ritual, banned in Catalonia since 2011.

Can I explain to you the primary reaction I had watching your latest film? I got home, had a steak for lunch and had to change the menu.

— It's a particular reaction. There are people who have the opposite. At the New York festival, a woman comes up to me, congratulates me because she loved the film, that it had been a cinematic experience that had moved her, blah, blah, blah, and she says: "I'm vegan and you've corrupted me." The power of cinema. Cinema has the ability to challenge us in such a powerful way that we can even end up loving what we previously hated.

Afternoons of solitude They are bulls seen so close that everything grows: the beauty, the cruelty and even the ridiculousness of it all, the way the bullfighters are dressed.

— My idea was to be as close as possible. To take advantage of that privilege and the talent I have of working with many hours of filming and editing. And also that I was somewhat oriented on the subject. When I was little, I had gone to the bullfights a few times. Then I went 30 years without going, but José Tomás's manager, Salvador Boix, is a friend, he is from Banyoles, and we began to have conversations about the subject.

On the day of the last bullfight at the Monumental, on September 25, 2011, where were you?

— I had tickets, but I gave them away because I couldn't go. It was the perfect combination to make the film: you maintain innocence, curiosity, you have no prejudices, but at the same time you have enough knowledge to know what is happening, to understand what the ritual consists of. I had given, and this is something curious, a conference at La Maestranza about the television broadcasts of bullfights on Canal+. But it was a pure intellectual exercise for a film director.

The last bullfights I had seen were on Spanish Television, when I was a child, and my father watched them. But your film couldn't have been filmed in a more different way: there is no general plan.

— Maybe some, but very few. In any case, there are none in which you can see the audience, which was an element that distorted me.

It is the bull and the bullfighter.

— It is the crux of what is happening. The heart. In that heart, the plastic beauty, the violent side, the spiritual side, the humor, the human side of solidarity between the members of the group come together.

The members of the gang are some luxury supporting actors. The most repeated phrase is: "Ole tus huevos" (Good for your balls).

— Yes, maybe so. They are very genuine guys. Paradoxically, within this kind of madness and strange fanaticism, there is something very human. You see the one crying in the van, moments of true solidarity in the face of danger. No more clichés. You have already seen that I do not spare any of the negative things that you mentioned at the beginning.

Not only do you not save anything, but it seemed to me that you were subscribing to the images of the last seconds of the bull's life. Why?

— I think it was balanced. It's part of gravity. Without that, it's incomprehensible. If there weren't these images, if this didn't happen, it would be Cirque du Soleil. And this isn't Cirque du Soleil. It's a kind of ritualistic, sacrificial activity that comes from much further back and has a symbolism and a meaning that has nothing to do with pure spectacle.

Is the fact that the final moment of this ritual is the death of the bull a victory or a defeat for civilization?

— Well, it's a victory. It's a confrontation with the reality of life. It's an acceptance of life, with its finitude, with its imperfections, with its risks and frictions. We see them much more seriously in the news.

The protagonist of your film is one of the best bullfighters in the world, Andrés Roca Rey, a 28-year-old Peruvian, handsome and with a certain restraint, not especially histrionic. What does he give you as an actor?

— You've seen him: he's mysterious. The most precious thing in cinema is someone you always want to keep watching, because you never quite get to the bottom of what he's thinking. Which is the complete opposite of all those actors you've seen now at the Goyas, the Gaudís or whatever, who are constantly making what they think transparent. Here is a person in all his complexity. An opacity that makes you not understand the reasons for all that.

There is also a beauty that I don't know if I should call it liquid: the sweat, the blood, the drool, the rain during a bullfight...

— This gives it a very strong poetry. The bullfighter, who didn't see himself bullfighting so well on the rainy day because he was in difficult conditions, told me: "For me, you can take all this away." But cinematically it gives a lot of poetry. The film is made with a lot of honesty, because it is a delicate subject. And it seems that the more honest it is, the more provocative it is. It gives a feeling of complexity, that you yourself don't know what to think about many things.

Have you finished the movie and don't know what to think about bullfighting?

— In my case, I do. I feel fascination. Because of its courage, which seems to be a quality that is despised today. To have made this film, you need some courage. Everyone said to me: "Why are you making a film about bullfighting now?" Because of the kind of audience I have here, I had a lot to lose and nothing to gain. "What's the point? You're not a fan, and you're not interested in defending it." Well, why not? Curiosity, the genuine fascination of seeing what's behind it and what the cameras are going to reveal, which is something much more inaccessible than what human eyes see.

The last days The World has given you the Bullfighting Award and the Senate, the National Bullfighting Award.

— I didn't ask for them, you know that.

Have you ever thought about not accepting them so as not to get into political trouble?

— No, why? What a mess? It's not a political mess. It's a party struggle. The anthropological element of bullfighting already transcends politics. It doesn't matter, everyone can have whatever opinion they want.

But doesn't it make you angry when someone uses your film politically?

— Nobody uses the film politically, it is unusable.

But if the PP gives you a prize that Podemos, through Minister Ernest Urtasun, had withdrawn...

— These are things that happen to elected officials, as the French say. People who have been elected and each one does what he wants with his power.

So, you didn't have any doubts about accepting that award?

— Of course, that's all I need. Besides, you already know my philosophy: I love those who love me. On the other hand, if I have been able to do some kind of good for someone, I'm delighted.

Who would you have done good to?

— If you think I have made a film that makes it possible to understand in a more complex, richer and deeper way, for better or worse or whatever, but at least with much more density, what bullfighting is, that was also one of the objectives of the film. Because it is a documentary and because a form of respect is to balance all the elements. The result will be what this ritual really is and what perhaps some did not imagine. Whatever the meaning of it.

You've taken away all the folkloric part.

— This bored me because it brought out the more sociological part. On the other hand, you are left with the picturesque characters, who are those of the gang, who are timeless. They refer to a world that had always existed but that the mass media, and more so with the Internet and networks, have made disappear due to the spiritual homogenization of people.

What world?

— This popular poetry that you could still find in certain individuals, which seems to have been left a little bit apart from the evolution of the world. Nowadays all people seem formatted, everyone wants to be the same. Before, since people didn't have so much information, they didn't have so many mirrors in which they were supposed to reflect themselves. I never saw any of those bullfighters looking at a mobile phone. Never.

I remember the last interview with you, 11 years ago, when you told me that you didn't like professional actors. How do you like bullfighters?

— Bullfighters are doing well, because at least they take more risks. They have two qualities: courage and commitment. This, seen from close up, is a lesson for many people, including me. I would like to have their extreme commitment and courage to take maximum risks in what I do.

What are you risking with this film?

— At first I thought it was quite a lot, but now, seeing the result, I think it's less. The first objective is always aesthetic, but indirectly it ends up being a very honest, very objective portrait. Violence is present, there is a form of cruelty, but there is a form of beauty, too. The plans for death have something deeply emotional. Animal trafficking is very graphic. Animals do not know the concept of death.

But you, while filming, haven't you said to yourself: "How is it that this is still being done?"

— Yes, that is one of the questions of the film, precisely. And what is the motivation behind it? And if it is done, is it good or bad? It is another moral question. If you already know everything, why do you need to watch a film? This film gives you access to images and sound that you have never had. It is worth going to see it and having additional information that will certainly not be in the way. And besides, it is a cinematic experience in itself.

Do you think we will see bulls in Catalonia again?

— I don't know, I doubt it, I think it's difficult. But I'm not a futurologist or a sociologist, and I don't care.

Let's talk about your latest project: a film about Russia and the United States. And you say that you are not a futurologist...

— Curiously, I wrote it three years ago. That eternal rivalry between Russia and the United States or that ambiguous friendship of today. I wonder if it is interesting that there is a, let's say, Russian counterpower to American hegemony. It has a light tone, a comedic tone. A fantasy.

What's the latest thing that caught your attention about Donald Trump?

— The spontaneity with which he answers questions. This is something that people have somewhat underestimated and it makes him very popular. If you watch the 50-minute video with Zelensky, he is always reacting to something that is said to him. He doesn't have a cliché. He answers what is asked of him. He is more anarchic and, surprisingly, quite articulate, regardless of whether we agree with the content or not. He is perhaps the most spontaneous of all the heads of state we know.

In Banyoles, in the last elections, Aliança Catalana won 10% of the votes, more or less the same as in my town, Taradell.

— It will grow all over Europe. They have won elections in Austria, in Italy, in the Netherlands, in Germany they are the second largest force. This is evidence, it means that there is a problem that is not being solved. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And rents are exorbitantly high and wages are not rising. There are people here who are suffering more and more.

And they think the far right would solve it.

— Obviously, because they have already tried the other medicine for a long time and every year they are worse off. The problem of wealth distribution is a problem that must be addressed.

The last two questions are the same for everyone. A song you've been listening to lately.

— Miracles, from Jefferson Starship.

The last words of the interview are yours.

— Nothing, glad to have been here.