‘Afternoons of Solitude’ wins in a year of rites and ceremonies

Spanish cinema continues accumulating international prestige in a year in which spirituality and liturgies (whether bullfighting, Catholic or electronic music) are on the podium.

Check out our critics’ votes here.

1. Lonely afternoons

Albert Serra

A microscopic portrait of the essence of the fight. There is no celebration or folklore in it. The images are stripped of all tinsel, which is avoided and neutralized. Only death remains, the measure of man and beast in the arena. The routine of fear and loneliness.

The brutal film by Albert Serra (Banyoles, 1975), Concha de Oro in San Sebastián, prevails over antagonistic discourses through a formal commitment that shows bullfighting as we have never seen it, and that is based on the amazing treatment of sound and the use of the telephoto lenswhich shortens the scales, to coin an aesthetic that moves between hyperrealism and abstraction.

A documentary? that addresses its protagonist, the matador Roca Rey, in the demigod bubble that they have given him and that makes us wonder if not it is actually a self-portrait of Albert Serra himself.

2. Sundays

Alauda Ruiz of Azúa

Why would a 17-year-old girl decide to enter a convent today? From this question, Ruiz de Azúa (Barakaldo, 1978), with an excellent script and formal austerity and elegance that do not prevent decisive and exciting details from emerging, it shows us the reasons of all the characters, from the liberal aunt of a fantastic Patricia López Arnaiz to the perhaps interested father of Miguel Garcés.

Each spectator must negotiate in their own way with what you are seeing and feeling.

3. Undertow

Oliver Laxe

A sensory and immersive experience with personality and risk and without fear of making people uncomfortable.

The proposal, winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes, is based on the search of a daughter and sister for the raves of the African desert to offer a journey of no return that speaks to us of the human soul and that is sustained in the enormous visual force of Oliver Laxe’s staging (Paris, 1982) and an exceptional soundtrack by Kangding Ray, inseparable from the deep meaning of the film.

4. A Portuguese villa

Avelina Prat

Avelina Prat (Valencia, 1972) continues to delve into a simple and empathetic, deeply humanistic cinemaas he already did in Basil (2022).

Manolo Solo shines as a timid Geography professor who, after his wife leaves him, undertakes an impromptu trip through Portugal and ends up impersonating Amalia’s (Maria de Medeiros) new gardener. A luminous film about second chances.

5. Pilgrimage

Carla Simon

After Summer 1993 (2017) y Alcarras (2022), Carla Simón (Barcelona, ​​1985) closes a sort of trilogy about his identity and about his family memory, marked by the death of his parents due to heroin and AIDS.

Here his cinema reaches an unprecedented place, in which fiction, document and dream maintain a fruitful dialogue. In addition, the film stages a musical number to the rhythm of Siniestro Total that reveals the ghosts of collective memory.

6. Madrid, Ext.

Juan Cavestany

An exciting and endearing portrait of a Madrid on the brink of extinctionabout to be erased forever by savage capitalism, although perhaps there is room for hope.

The film Cavestany (Madrid, 1967), without a conventional narrative thread, accumulates images of cafes, small businesses, video stores, signs, streets, faces of ordinary people, some voices… The prodigious editing and music of Guille Galván rubrican a fascinating films.

7. Strange river

Jaume Claret Muxart

The debut of Claret Muxart (Barcelona, ​​1998) could be defined as and Call Me by Your Name directed by Angela Schanelec. Sensory and sensual film, it addresses the story of Dídac (Jan Monter), a young man who travels along the banks of the Danube with his family, while experiencing the tremors of adolescence.

The appearance of an enigmatic young man opens a path of mystery and poetry that ends up leading the viewer to great levels of emotion.

8. The Tigers

Alberto Rodriguez

The Spanish master of thriller never disappoints. Alberto Rodríguez (Seville, 1971), who also released the addictive series this year Anatomy of a momentpresents a harsh and raw story, full of tension, about two losers (magnificent Antonio de la Torre and Bárbara Lennie) marked by the past and with few expectations for the future.

The thrilling immersion sequences mark a film that is not exempt from political readings.

9. The good lyrics

Celia Rico Clavelino

Adapting the novel of the same name by Chirbes, Celia Rico Clavelino (Seville, 1982) makes a tribute to the women who sacrificed themselves in silence to sustain families during the sad post-war years of hunger and repression.

Loreto Mauleón –well supported by Enric Auquer, Roger Casamajor and Ana Rujas– gives them a face with a commendable job of containment in a film that is delicately constructed based on gestures, looks and silences.

10. Deaf

Eva Liberty

Biznaga de Oro in Málaga, the feature film debut of Eva Libertad (Molina de Segura, 1978) delves into the fears and expectations surrounding motherhood of a deaf womanplayed by Miriam Garlo, the director’s sister, who suffers from a disability similar to that of the character.

A job that brings into play interesting formal and narrative strategies so that we put ourselves in the shoes of non-hearing people, whom he happily does not idealize or sanctify.