Film Description

Black Bull is an insightful, stirring and provocative documentary by Pedro González-Rubio and Carlos Armella. They follow the ups and downs in the life of second-rate toreador Fernando Pacheco, often referred to as “El Negro” or “El Suicida.” These talented co-directors create an especially intimate environment; at times it seems they must be invisible to their subjects, as several of the moments they capture on film are hard to believe - and, at times, hard to stomach.

Pacheco works as a bullfighter in the Mayan community fairs in the Yucatán Peninsula, communities rife with misery and poverty despite lying only a couple of hundred kilometres from tourist havens such as Cancún. The bullfights are full of surprises: Pacheco is more of a stuntman than anything else and a definite highlight of the documentary is discovering the regional tradition of bullfighting in drag. A more troubling revelation is that Pacheco and his fellow bullfighters often go into the ring drunk and stoned. It would seem Pacheco’s greatest adversary is his own self-destructive nature.

Life is not pretty here, but Black Bull is not an invitation for us to judge. Rather, the film is a complex, challenging work that pushes the boundaries of documentary filmmaking. Vividly shot on MiniDV and attentively edited and paced, it resists the easy lure of condemning its difficult subject. Aware of Pacheco’s extremely limited choices in this miserable environment, González-Rubio and Armella elect instead to search his compulsive, violent nature for its troubling underlying causes.