Toro Negro (Black Bull)

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dubversion

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Went to see this movie last night as part of the Discovering Latin America Film Festival down at Brixton Ritzy. A horrible film.

The review on the Ritzy site reads..


Toro Negro (n/c)

Black Bull is an insightful, stirring and provocative documentary. Armella and Rubio follow the ups and downs in the life of second-rate toreador Fernando Pacheco, often referred to as “El Negro” or “El Suicida.” They create an especially intimate environment; at times it seems they must be invisible to their subjects, as several of the moments they capture on film are hard to believe - and, at times, hard to stomach. Pacheco works as a bullfighter in the Mayan community fairs in the Yucatán Peninsula, communities rife with misery and poverty despite lying only a couple of hundred kilometres from tourist havens such as Cancún. The bullfights are full of surprises: Pacheco is more of a stuntman than anything else. A more troubling revelation is that Pacheco and his fellow bullfighters often go into the ring drunk and stoned. It would seem Pacheco’s greatest adversary is his own self-destructive nature. BLACK BULL won the Horizons award at the 2005 San Sebastian International Film Festival, best film at Morelia International Film Festival 2005, best documentary at Havana Film Festival and a Special Jury Mention at the Three Continents Festival in Nantes.
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The bit in bold is particularly pertinent - I assume they're referring to the scenes in the film where the cameraman films the protagonist beating, abusing and otherwise harming his pregnant partner while her kids look on. After several such scenes, the woman does eventually ask the cameraman to stop filming and help, but it was a long time coming.

I don't really know what this film achieved. Perhaps I had false expectations, of a look at the life of a Mexican matador, or a broader picture of life in that world. What I got was a sordid little movie about an unpleasant little drunken egomaniac who's behaviour, I suspect, got worse once the cameras were rolling.
 
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