The Moment of Truth

Filmmaker Francesco Rosi's elemental bullfight drama from 1965 may put off sensitive viewers with its detached, documentary-realism approach to the beautiful/terrible depiction of bullring slaughter, which was filmed at actual arenas and festivals, and starred real-life matador Miguel Mateo as the lead (no stuntmen, no trick shots—and no animal-rights reps on the set). Mateo plays an unskilled young man fleeing his native Andalusia for the big city of Barcelona to find his fortune. But the only high paying job available is that of matador—those handsome and famous bullfighters who risk their lives in ritual combat. Spending his savings on private lessons and an agent, Miguel rapidly ascends the ranks, marries, tours the world, has affairs—and, most of all, hones his craft. Even with bullfights necessarily shot from a distance (albeit with then-unprecedented telephoto cinematography), the dance-like combat-pageant can still transfix—and sicken those sensitive to animal cruelty, as the beasts exhale streams of blood in their death agonies (horses and men not are spared either). A Criterion Collection release, The Moment of Truth boasts a handsome transfer and extras that include a bonus interview with Rossi (who says he literally wrote the script as he went along on the bullfight circuit), and a booklet with an essay by Peter Matthews, who tries to make a case for the film being subversively anti-bullfight and anti-Franco—an argument that is very much in the (often wincing) eye of the beholder. Recommended. (C. Cassady)