La sangre es blanca

(Blood is White, Óscar Vincentelli, Spain/Venezuela, 2020)

Is it possible to film the act of bullfighting, the corrida, without buying into the entire, loaded, bloody mythology of this age-old, barbarous spectacle? The question has come around again with the event of Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude (2024).

Óscar Vincentelli (director of three previous shorts since 2015 and maker of video installations) has found a way to defuse the ghastly thrill of it all in his 13-minute La sangre es blanca: by using thermal photography.

All space is swallowed by darkness except for the spectral figures of man and animal illuminated weirdly from within.

The camera remains static and at a distance. The soundtrack recreates only essential footsteps and breaths; the roaring crowd and all other natural sounds have disappeared.

The effect is scientific, dispassionate and quietly comical: never has this blood sport seemed so absurd.

© Adrian Martin October 2021 + update February 2025