Serra’s unflinching, observational documentary plants its camera with sniper-like focus on the bloody ritual of bullfighting, as static long takes and dynamic close-ups capture a lonely matador risking his life, afternoon after afternoon, to end another.
Serra’s latest ‘slow cinema’ effort is at times hypnotic and beguiling, though it isn’t always consistently rewarding as he weaves a tale set in Tahiti about a stagnating High Commissioner who becomes privy to the prospect of something unimaginably nightmarish happening to his beloved French Polynesian island.
French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Leaud lies bedridden for two hours in Albert Serra’s exquisite, slow-burning 18th-century take on the agonising final days of the famous Sun King, shot with such a high fidelity to history that one might mistake it for documentary authenticity.
If you enjoy slow arthouse cinema that is also extremely perverse, then this new tableau-styled film by Albert Serra about libertinism in 18th century France may be your cup of tea.
Eternality Tan 