Letter from Spain #57
A day in the life of a bullfighter wins top prize at San Sebastian film festival
A documentary film about bullfighting won the top prize, the Golden Shell, at the 72nd San Sebastian Film Festival on Saturday night, beating strong feature film competition from directors such as Mike Leigh, Joshua Oppenheimer and Edward Berger.
‘Tardes de soledad’ (‘Afternoons of Solitude’), directed by Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra, is described simply as ‘the life of the bullfighter (Peruvian Andrés Roca Rey) during a day of bullfighting, from the moment he dresses up to the moment he undresses’.
Its subject matter and the graphic nature of its storytelling has triggered both admiration and disgust from viewers, with the animal rights group PACMA denouncing it as a romanticised vision of bullfighting that normalises violence towards animals.
I haven’t seen this award-winning documentary yet, but I can’t wait to do so. For those of you who have read The Barcelona Connection and/or know that we’re developing it for the screen, you’ll understand why. Bullfighting is only a sub-plot in the book, but it’s a subject matter that has fascinated me for many years - and especially the fact that it divides Spain.
In writing this crime-thriller (with black comedy), I mention a book in the acknowledgements page that helped me on my research about how bullfighters travel - Death and the Sun by Edward Levine. I also took a lot of video footage as part of my research on how bullfighters arrive and leave the bullrings, often being carried shoulder-high to their waiting mini-vans if they have ‘performed’ well.
Film critics have argued that Albert Serra’s ‘Afternoons of Solitude’ documentary has something for both fans of bullfighting and opponents of it, as it gives insight into the fear of death the bullfighter has before the corrida, but showcases the violence and cruelty against fighting bulls like no other film before it.
Guy Lodge in Variety said that the film’s ‘absurd beauty and obscene bloodshed’ was ‘a hard, hypnotic corrective to more noble cinematic depictions of the controversial blood sport’.
‘There’s certainly a fascination here with the contrived spectacle of bullfighting, with its intricate choreography and ornate, spangly costuming, but you’d be hard pressed to describe “Afternoons of Solitude” as celebratory of its subject,’ wrote Lodge. ‘The film’s gaze is arguably as mocking as it is dazzled - with the macho posturing and hero-worship of Roca Rey a tacit source of comedy - while Serra, living up to his reputation for challenging arthouse fare, doesn’t flinch in his presentation of animal abuse and suffering.’
While noting that the documentary’s graphic cruelty makes it a harrowing watch, The Hollywood Reporter’s chief film critic David Rooney called it ‘transfixing’ and a work of ‘barbaric beauty’.
‘Anyone with a low threshold for cruelty to animals will find this a harrowing watch, but for those with the stomach for it, the doc is a unique study of discipline, bravado, laser focus and showmanship,’ wrote Rooney.
The documentary film has been described as one of the most unflinching depictions of bullfighting ever made - and it must be good if it won the Golden Shell in San Sebastian.
It is apparently shot without commentary and interviews, with the 48-year-old Catalan filmmaker choosing an observational approach instead, with no title cards, captions, voiceover or special effects. Upon receiving his award, Serra said: ‘I would like to thank the protagonists for their open-mindedness in allowing people like us into their world. The film has a genuine side that cannot be found in many other films. Only this kind of daring experimental cinema dares to get to the bottom of an issue like this.’
The animal rights group PACMA had called for the film to be withdrawn from the festival - but I think they probably missed the point. We watch movies, series and documentaries about war, murder, drugs, rape, people trafficking, child abuse - but that doesn’t mean we ‘agree’ with what the ‘baddies’ are doing.
Just as a footnote, I wrote this in a chapter of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid:
I’d never preach that the bullfight is right because I don’t think it is. I don’t think there’s any justification for it at all. Whatever they say, bullfighting is almost certainly wrong, but it is a fact of life. The Spanish hold bullfights and will do so until .. well, until the cows come home.
‘Until The Cows Come Home’ was then the first title of a film script that I wrote, which later became ‘The Barcelona Connection’ …
Books, Reviews, Research, News & Events
Forthcoming Events
The event at the Hotel Castell d’Empordà in La Bisbal d’Empordà (Catalonia), which is scheduled to be part of the hotel’s 25th anniversary, will take place in April next year. The hotel is part of a key plot element in The Barcelona Connection (mentioned in Letter from Spain #8) and which is based on true events. The event is planned to be about ‘The Dalí Connection’ to the hotel and, of course, the book! More details about this event will follow in due course …
The Barcelona Connection - Research
In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & Reviews
A murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & Reviews
Eighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid
The hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real 'real' Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull's testicles.
Tim Parfitt's rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain's glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn't a clue what they're on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don't miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish edition
A Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact Details
You can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
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