La promesa. Cortometraje español de Carlos Bernabé
2017 · 4m · España
Directed by Carlos Bernabé, Fermín Barón
Genres: biography, documentary, sports
Tones: contemplative, mythic, tender
Jesús Elortz, a veteran runner who has run before the bulls' horns for sixty years, recreates the emotions of the San Fermín running of the bulls through the deserted streets of Pamplona, faithful to a promise stronger than fear itself.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A sixty-year loyalty to a dead ritual—that's either the most boring premise imaginable or a brilliant perversity depending on whether Bernabé actually interrogates the obsession or just genuflects to it; four minutes isn't enough to tell, which means this probably plays it safe.
A formally exquisite meditation on ritual and fidelity that positions itself squarely in the documentary-as-portraiture tradition—Bernabé's restraint in letting Elortz's solitary run speak mythically rather than sentimentally is exactly the kind of considered choice that separates the festival-circuit from the forgettable.
The decision to film him alone on empty streets instead of in the chaos of the actual festival—that single choice does all the work, isolating the promise from the spectacle and letting you hear his breath as liturgy rather than sport.