Albert Serra: blood and poetry.

Lights out and action. Albert Serra's 'Tardes de soledad' is shown in the official section of the Sant Sebastià Festival, a festival that is not its most natural ecosystem. We previously heard that Isaki Lacuesta and his latest filmography will represent Spain at the Oscars. And we have also seen how Isa Campo is photographed as part of the team of the feature film 'Nevenka', by Iciar Bollaín. But we continue. A brau with a night black background looks at us from side to side and breathes heavily. Total silence in the room. Before entering, a peaceful demonstration with a group against animal abuse has shaken the premiere a bit. Talking about wild animals on the peninsula is a high-risk job. The Spanish-Peruvian bullfighter Andrés Roca-Rey appears on the scene. The brau-torero dialogue will be dominant throughout the filmic representation. Very short shots, we feel the smell of the animal, the sweat of the bullfighter, the blood made into paint, as well as the tension and the voices of the "corrida". Spectators completely disappear during the entire screening. Only a few short bus rides break the dynamic and provide an instant of comedy and coaching to the superman bullfighter. Dressed as a 21st century traditional dancer, the young man stands as a new sexual icon. A balancer of death that makes you question whether his delusion of office is bravery or madness. A shot shows us the animal's feet in contrast with the black and flimsy shoes of the bullfighter. Sublime In the Museum of Sant Telmo – a small jewel in the middle of the old quarter of Donostia – and very close to an enigmatic painting by El Greco (where a painted skull also appears), a huge painting by Ignacio de Zuloaga is discovered which it represents a portrait of talking bullfighters in an urban scene of good quality. Things haven't changed much since he painted the work.

First scare: the bullfighter on the ground. Second scare: a chilling image of the half-dying animal, full of blood, with white eyes, which is finished off with a short knife. We are already beginning to sense the intelligent neutrality of the director's gaze and that of his entire team. He doesn't judge, or at least that's what he wanted. He uses a kind of emotional distance, persevering and uncomfortable for the viewer, which contributes to enhancing the document, of artistically documenting what for some is a wilderness in the 21st century and, for others, an ancestral tradition of poetics bravery, full of national and identity connotations, despite the fact that bullfighting was widespread throughout the peninsula. A tradition that the art of authors such as Picasso, Manolo Hugué or Miquel Barceló have also represented.

At the after party, the neurons are still painting the two hours of intense neutrality, while I think about the unpredictable turn of the filmmaker, who has gone from the cool retrofuturistic vision of 'Pacifiction' to the sometimes delirious customism of 'Tardes de soledad' '. While looking at the enchanting beach of La Concha in the evening, and listening to how the sea whispers, which is sometimes a poetic lullaby. The party, in a building with a mixture of rationalist touches and art deco style, is full of familiar faces. The director of the ICEC, Edgar García, and his head of audiovisuals, Francisco Vargas; the trafficker of ideas Vicenç Altaió; Guillem Pérez, poet and gastronome; Imma Merino, film critic; Lluís Coromina, personal friend of Albert Serra and patron of his films; the ex-counselor of Culture Santi Vila and, of course, the entire team in full of the film and its producers: Artur Tort, director of photography; Montse Triola and Clàudia Pagès, producers; Marc Verdaguer, composer of the music... The next day, back home, more serendipity. We coincide with the young co-protagonist of the film 'Las chicas de la estación', Salua Hadra, a film that we cannot stop watching and that will not leave anyone indifferent: the abuse of minors.