CPH:DOX 2025 – Afternoons of Solitude

The camera remains on the extremely charismatic young bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey for every minute of Albert Serra’s uncompromising, provocative and masterful film about the disgusting display of aestheticised cruelty called bullfighting. We are with the young matador in the arena, in the car before and after the fights, and in the luxury hotel where he dons the feminine garments soon to be soiled and torn apart. Rey is surrounded by a wall of male assistants, and Serra’s film offers a sublime – and transgressive – insight into the masculine death cult surrounding the young superstar. Rey is a ballet dancer with a pout and a sword hidden on his back. A young dandy, complete in his arrogance, honoured by the cheers of the audience under a burning sun. ‘Afternoons of Solitude’ is a work that leaves you to judge for yourself what you see.