Ella Es el Matator (review)

Ella es el Matador is a stylish documentary on women in bull-fighting that uses the ritual and prestige of this conspicuously masculine profession to explore the evolving self-image of post-Franco Spain. Crafted by Celeste Carrasco and Gemma Cubero, talented documentarists who move gracefully across international borders, the film follows the career of two 21^st-century toreras determined to prove that women can perform as well as men at el momento de la verdad. Seen largely through the eyes (and understood through the voices) of its two central protagonists, Ella Es el Matador not only situates women within the profession of bull-fighting, but also locates bull-fighting in a new Spain that is increasingly integrated into a post-national, post-Christian Europe.

Carrasco and Cubero make good partners, Carrasco's theatrical sense (when away from the film studio she works with the Madrid Opera) augmenting the directorial skills Cubero brings from earlier work both in documentary and the fiction film. They first teamed under the directorial hand of Lourdes Portillo in Señorina Extraviada (2001), a powerful human rights documentary that inquires into unsolved crimes against women in the border city of Juarez, Mexico. Though quite different both in style and theme, Ella Es el Matador shares with the earlier production an interest in women at the margin, be it the marginalized status of crime victims or that of women determined to achieve lives beyond conventional gender roles.

Without directly addressing the flurry of animal-rights activism that in 2004 briefly made Barcelona a "bull-fight free city," the film looks at bull-fighting as a powerful symbol of national identity, yet one that seems slightly anachronistic and oddly positioned in a world committed to multi-culturalism and striving for gender equality. Cinematically, it is also gracefully fashioned, blending social commentary with the personal narratives of its protagonists, while enlivening both with the dark magic of the bullring. The details of this drama are vividly present: we watch as the magenta stockings are drawn tightly against the legs, the cape swirls in an energy-charged arc, the inevitable horns threaten, the sword is poised in a trained hand, which soon will be blood-stained. Meanwhile, at key moments, the long lens composition compresses the planes, drawing the antagonists together, wordlessly bringing home the excitement and peril the matador must certainly feel. Cubero and Carrasco also add to our sense of the politics of bull-fighting, the consignment of women to rural arenas and contests with inadequate bulls, as well as the implicit chauvinism of male bull-fighters like Enrico Ponce who says, probably with no malice intended, "the physical strength just isn't the same."

The filmmakers have chosen two protagonists who balance each other effectively, and together offer a relatively full-spectrum view of women in the profession. Eva Florencia, the novice, is an Italian, the child of a family hostile to bullfighting, though she herself sees "beyond the cruelty people always talk about" and is determined to "create something beautiful." In spite of arduous efforts, Eva fails to achieve her goals. Her counterpoint is Maripaz Vega, a native of Andalucía, whose mother and several male siblings all supported her bull-fighting ambitions. In the course of the film, we see her confirm her place as Spain's one active professional female matador, ultimately enjoying a triumphal moment in front of hometown fans in the massive stadium at Malàga. More problematically, we also watch her count the scars that disfigure an otherwise beautiful body and look on as she is grazed by bull's horns and borne from the ring on a stretcher. She knows that "death is always there, like a shadow that follows us." These scenes are respectful, but not romanticized or sensationalized. The filmmakers' glance is steady and sure, catching what Hemingway called "grace under pressure."

Of the two women, Eva is in the...