“Matatoro” by Mauro Carraro, Raphaël Calamote and Jérémy Pasquet

Matatoro takes on “the hermetic world of bullfighting and its public, here reinvented and reinterpreted.” The short was made at Supinfocom Arles last year by Mauro Carraro, Raphaël Calamote, and Jérémy Pasquet. The music was composed by Pierre Manchot.

The film is ambitious stylistically: its nonphotorealistic rendering style mimics ink and watercolor to good effect, and the stylized animation and layouts emphasize the theatrical nature of bullfighting. There’s never any doubt that the film was made in CG–the smooth perfection of the camera gives it away–but the filmmakers’ application of the watercolor technique allows for some of the most exciting color I’ve seen in any recent CG short.

The imagery in Matatoro is thoughtful and thoughtprovoking. The filmmakers draw visual metaphors between bullfighting and flamenco dancing, carousel rides, and the circus, but in the end, the film asks viewers to reconsider whether it resembles any of those other less violent pastimes.