The Moment of Truth

A magnificent Cinemascope convulsion of sand, blood, heat, blinding sunlight and roaring crowds, Rosi’s The Moment of Truth is perhaps “the greatest of all bullfighting movies” (Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide); some rank it amongst the director’s finest works. Rosi dispenses with Hollywood melodrama and romance to tell a stripped-down, neorealist tale of a poor Andalusian peasant boy who migrates to Barcelona in hopes of finding fame and fortune on the bullfighting circuit. Virtuoso sequences capture the frenzy of fiesta and flamenco, but never obscure a subtler analysis of the cynicism, corruption, and soul-destroying compromise that can lie in wait on the road to success. Starring one of Spain's most famous matadors, the film reveals “a colourful, cruel world of senseless exploitation (of animals and humans alike) and tyrannical traditions, rendered with vivid brilliance by this uncommonly unsentimental director” (Geoff Andrew, Time Out). “Bloody brilliance . . . overwhelmingly achieved . . . The beauty of The Moment of Truth is not in bullfighting (Goya did not love war because he made great etchings of it) but in the beauty of rage, masterfully rendered in art” (Pauline Kael). Colour, 35mm, in Italian with English subtitles. 110 mins.