He is like a man without a shadow.” In Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude (2024), one corrida notably takes place in the rain. Of course, a cut like this can equally mark out an opposition, and Afternoons of Solitude is a film that depicts an atavistic battle between man and animal in which death is the stake. With his surrounding gang, Roca Rey is never entirely alone, even if he often seems to exist at a remove from everyone around him, save for the bull. Why does Roca Rey proudly hold up a bull’s severed ear at the end of a fight? In this regard, Afternoons of Solitude is better compared to the paintings of Francis Bacon or Miriam Cahn than to Hollywood’s repulsively gratuitous indulgence in the disposability of bodies, human and animal.