Matador takes bull by the horns

LITTLE ROCK — Americans may have vehement opinions about bullfighting, but they really don't know much about it. Stephen Higgins, a San Francisco-based photographer, is providing enlightenment.

"I saw a bullfight on a lark," says Higgins. "I was pretty shocked. It wasn't completely a pleasant experience but Icouldn't erase the imagery from my mind. I wanted to do something with that material, maybe a photo essay."

So, he continues, "I went to Spain and got some extraordinary access [to the world of bullfighting]. It was too good an opportunity; I felt I needed to do something with motion and sound. We got a crew together and went backto Spain. Three years later we had a lot of footage."

That footage, with the help of documentary filmmaker Nina Gilden Seavey, evolved into The Matador, which premieres 4 p.m. Monday at the South by Southwest Film Festival running today through March 15 in Austin, Texas. The 75-minute documentary (not rated; contains graphic gore), screening at film festivals in hopes of finding a distributor, follows matador David Fandila, now 26, throughout Spain and Latin America in his quest to become the world's top-ranked bullfighter.

Nicknamed El Fandi, Fandila's career path isn't an easy one. He's reviled by passionate demonstrators who protest bullfighting's brutality and adored by fans who grant bullfighters celebrity status far beyond that of professional athletes.

"Bullfighters are like rock stars, sports stars, surrounded by fans who deify them," says Higgins. "But it actually goes deeper than that. The bullfighting tradition is stronger than sports and music - it's about mortality because the stakes are so high."

Matadors get celebrity treatment, but Fandila, as demonstrated in the film, often avoids it."David is more comfortable in the ring; he's a shy guy," says producer and co-director Seavey. "Bullfighters don't have the levity of rock stars. This is gravitas."

The Matador, she explains, "delves into the iconic place that being a matador plays in the Latin culture. It speaks to the power of the ritual, unchanged for many centuries. That's where the seriousness comes from."

Fandila, who comes from a family devoted for generations to bullfighting, "does this because he loves this, loves the tradition, the act of being a matador," Higgins says. "It's not an ego gratification. He wants to do his job well. David embodies modern Spain. He's a very casual guy; when you see him you almost think him more American than Spanish. If anything, the film is about the contrast he seems to embody."

The film is clear about the mortal risks Fandila undertakes and the inevitable bloody doom of the bulls with whom he fights. The filmmakers, like many of their fellow Americans, enteredinto the project with opinions on the subject.

"Bullfighting is an extraordinary commentary on humanity and culture and what we do as a civilization," says Higgins. "Without putting a value judgment on what happens, I had a tremendous respect for it before we made this film. I still do, maybe a little more, seeing the sacrifice the matadors make for themselves, and for each other. There's an Old World sense of tradition, of loyalty, that goes for the fans as well."

"I was never knowledgeable about the bullfight, didn't feel any affinity about it [before making The Matador]," says Seavey. "I make films about culture, I enter into various worlds to give a voice to culture. From my perspective, this film is about the sacred place this cultural icon presents. I've come to an appreciation - lessthan a love - for something so anachronistic but that holds such a strong place in the modern world."

For more information, visit www.matadorthefilm.com.

MovieStyle, Pages 41, 46 on 03/07/2008