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| Starring: David Fandila Directed by: Stephen Higgins |
Theatrical release: 2008
Blu-ray release: 2009
Released by: City Lights Home Entertainment Dolby Digital 5.1
Widescreen |
For centuries bullfighting has been
synonymous with Spain's image. Matadors have been glorified in literature, painting, film,
and opera. This movie tries to give one an overview of the so-called sport by following
the career of a young matador, David Fandila, known to his fans as El Fandi. The
filmmakers shot Fandila’s career through the 2003, 2004, and 2005 seasons, as the
young man aspires to join a small cadre of matadors who have performed a hundred corridas
in a single season. A corrida is comprised of six bullfights starring three matadors, each
endeavoring to kill two bulls. Once you see what El Fandi has to go through for each
performance, it seems miraculous that he, or anyone, could endure this activity many times
in a season that only lasts four-plus months. It is no wonder that the number of achievers
is so small.
El Fandi turned 24 during the last season filmed, and his
achievements are impressive. He has good looks, an athlete’s build, and an uncanny
sense of drama. Off ring, he is modest and unassuming, gentle and polite, but put him in
the ring with a bull and he turns into a charismatic performer who mesmerizes bull and
crowd alike. His style is not classical. At times he seems like an athlete, at other
moments like a fleet-footed dancer, always with a sense of drama at the core of his work.
El Fandi’s style might be glorious to watch, but its
result, the death of an animal, is not. In "An Introduction to the Bullfight,"
an informative mini documentary that accompanies the feature, it is said that bullfighting
is not a sport but ritualized animal sacrifice. We’re told in the feature that there
are brave bulls that are pardoned and thus not killed, but El Fandi doesn’t seem to
fight any of those. The ones he is pitted against are dramatically dispatched in a manner
that advocates would call humane but is liable to make most of us wince. Animal-rights
advocates regularly picket the fights, and we hear briefly from some of them toward the
middle of the film, but the director skirts this important issue, never giving it full
center stage. This makes his "documentary" seem more like a personality profile
of El Fandi than anything deeper.
Except for the blood-letting, it’s still a good watch
and contains the best matador-in-action footage I have ever seen. The vibrant colors of
the corridas are vividly captured and have come across well to the Blu-ray Disc. The
images are not sharp enough to give them an instant HD look, but they are relatively clean
and clear. The original music score by John Califra plays a big part in creating the
romantic sweep of the fighting scenes, and it sounds robust and full. It seems curious
that the disc producers didn’t opt for Dolby TrueHD, merely settling for regular
Dolby Digital, but the results are surprisingly good. The music has excellent frequency
range, and the surrounds often capture the crowd sounds with exciting accuracy.
In addition to the extras already mentioned there are full
corrida fight scenes shot in widescreen, a music video, and some still photographs that
are often sharper than the equivalent motion sequences. If you want to get the flavor of
real Spanish bullfighting, this disc would make a good weekend rental. Once you see it,
however, you might never again consider this gruesome pageantry much of a sport, rather a
dance of death that delivers the second D-word to the bull almost every time. You might
give this inevitability a "D" for effort, and where’s the sport in that? |
