documentary | The Last Movie Guy

Afternoons of Solitude (2024): Inside the Silence of the Bullring

Afternoons of Solitude accomplishes something that seems almost impossible. Through its striking visual approach, director Albert Serra makes us experience another person’s emotions as if they were our own. This is not merely a film that stirs empathy; it is an immersive journey that allows us to feel, almost physically, the weight of absolute solitude. Standing alone in the center of the bullring, the matador is not simply confronting a bull; he is confronting his fears, his fragile humanity, his anguish, death itself, and the profound loneliness that comes with it.

Scarlet Girls (2026): The Power of Uncomfortable Truths

Posted on April 29 by Hugo Pagan Soto

The pen is mightier than the sword, as the immortal phrase by Cardinal Richelieu in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s play suggests. The same applies to cinema; the power of ideas within cinematic storytelling has a more lasting impact than most mass media. Scarlet Girls (2026) by Paula Cury Melo knows how to wield this weapon to take a firm stance on a polarizing issue. One may agree or disagree with the film’s perspective, but its construction of discourse is powerful and addresses a sensitive topic with rigor and depth.

I Am Not Your Negro from Raoul Peck

Posted on November 6, 2023 by Hugo Pagan Soto

In 1979 an idea was born in the mind of James Baldwin. In a letter he explained to his agent that his next project, titled “Remember This House,” was going to encompass meetings with three of his closest friends: Medgar Evers (1925-1963), Malcolm X (1925-1965), and Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968). At the time of his death in 1987, Baldwin left behind an unfinished 30-page manuscript. With the documentary I Am Not Your Negro (2016), filmmaker Raoul Peck seeks a kind of closure for the unfinished work.

A Cop Movie (2021)

Posted on November 23, 2021 by Hugo Pagan Soto

There are two ways to shoot a scene and one of them is wrong.
David Fincher

Director Alonso Ruizpalacios could have approached his documentary A Cop Movie in multiple ways. The result brings us closer to the idea of the man from Seven (1995), there was only one correct way to approach this issue. The only thing that makes more headlines than corruption in Mexico is drug trafficking. We can argue that the two things are so closely linked that it is impossible to define where one begins and the other ends. Corruption was the yeast that fermented this idea of Ruizpalacios that in the end ended up focusing on a single institution within the entire political fabric.

The Rescue (2021) TIFF 2021

Posted on November 1, 2021 by Hugo Pagan Soto

The Great Cave of the Sleeping Lady (Tham Luang Nang Non) is a cave located in a mountain system that marks the border between Thailand and Myanmar. Its maximum depth is 279 feet, and its total length is 10.3 kilometers. Prior to 2018 it was just a tourist spot frequented mainly by cave diving enthusiasts. On June 23, 2018, the whole world was going to know this remote place. The Rescue (2021) tells the odyssey of 12 children and their soccer coach after being trapped inside this cave system. The documentary is approached from the perspective of rescuers and personnel who worked to accomplish one of the most incredible rescue missions.