What would make a seven-year-old knowingly risk his life? Why would anyone yearn to become a bullfighter? And why, in particular, would the filmmaker’s father suddenly leave his job as an American Pepsi-Cola executive and move the family to Mexico to become a bullfighter at the age of thirty-nine? With these intriguing questions as her starting point, Victoria-Clay-Mendoza begins a four-year journey into the existential mysteries of the revered, violent, and intoxicatingly graceful relationship between man and bull—or in this case boys and bulls. Following the careers of three up-and-coming bullfighting apprentices in Spain, Maletilla brings to the screen an exquisite sense of detail, a wealth of unanswered questions, and a kaleidoscopic collage of images you’ll not soon forget.  ST