Bull Runners of Pamplona Movie Review

The Bull Runners of Pamplona is a captivating documentary that distills seven days of exhilaration into an hour of breathtaking film. We have all seen footage of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, but the innovative camera techniques in this movie captured the spirit of fiesta better than anything I’ve ever seen.

The film gives an overview of San Fermin and the preparations the city of Pamplona undertakes to receive over a million visitors every July.  We learn about the history of the festival and about the giants and the big heads (Gigantes y Cabezudos), featured in the streets every day of fiesta for centuries, along with the singing, dancing, and folklore that have endured for generations.  But the central story in this film is the encierro, the actual running in the streets with bulls, which is told by a handful of long-time runners both Spanish and American.

The Bull Runners of Pamplona is a visual feast and a thoughtful inquiry into why so many people around the world gather in Pamplona for the few minutes it takes for men to run with the bulls through the cobblestones streets of Pamplona to the bullring each morning, risking death for the evanescent sense of exhilaration that follows.

In an interview about running with bulls, American bull runner Joe Distler was asked if he had a death wish, “A death wish?” he considered incredulously,  “Oh no”, he replied, “I have a lifewish”.

The fiesta in Pamplona is a richly layered mix of history, tradition, dance, music, song, puppets, parades, Basque and Spanish heritage, not to mention ancient streets with fighting bulls loosed every morning among a sea of human beings, clothed in red and white. Fiesta San Fermin is a celebration of life and of death, a party, a drama, a ritual.  It is almost impossible to tell a linear story about San Fermin, for it is certainly not a linear experience. It is a uniquely Spanish experience that could only happen in Spain.

The story of the encierro is told by a handful of runners who return to Pamplona year after year. The interviews are fascinating, giving a very human portrait of the joy, the wonder and the fear of the encierro experience. In interviews, Javier Solano explains some of the traditions that have survived over the years to create the unique experience of fiesta.  Javier explains how the tradition of carrying a rolled up newspaper started, and how it is used as “an exhaust pipe for fear.”  Javier jokes that even the most hardened atheists seem to recover their faith a few minutes before 8:00. Tom Turley talks about training himself to run in the middle of the street, against the very human instincts of self-preservation. Julen Madina, a Spanish runner who started in 1971 shares the spiritual, physical, and emotional preparation he undergoes not only for the encierro, but also for his eventual retirement from something he so clearly loves. “When I arrive in Estafeta Street, I feel as if I am entering a temple,” he says.

The movie is surprisingly concise, considering how much information it covers.  We learn about the ranchers and breeders who raise the bulls who will run and fight in Pamplona.  One bull handler is especially eloquent about the many ways Spanish people regard bulls, an animal that Fredrico Lorca called the spiritual and emotional treasure of Spain. “The bull for us is the ultimate animal,” says bull shepherd Miguel Reta. This complex love of bulls is part of what makes the fiesta such a poignant and emotionally powerful experience.  Some of the footage in this film gives you a glimpse of the power and beauty of the bulls; the pounding of hooves on pavement, the razor sharp horns, foam flecked chins, and the beautiful way they move.

The filmmakers also do a great job of showing the risks of running with the bulls, and there are a few horrific images of people getting injured or gored. Photographer Jim Hollander has taken thousands of photos in Pamplona, and says such images serve to remind the world that running with bulls is a dangerous undertaking. “Without the blood, without somebody getting hurt, you don’t have the emotion of the encierro,” he says. There is an interview with the medics who are on standby during fiesta, and two interviews with runners who speak from their hospital beds. There is a segment about the activists who protest not only the bullfights but the running of the bulls as well.

The film also highlights the problems that its popularity has created.  As busloads of young people come to the festival each year from all over the world, the streets have become dangerously crowded during the encierro, making it easier to trip or fall during the course.

What I love most about the movie are the parts of the film that are in slow motion as bulls and men run in the street together every morning.  These frames give the viewer a chance to truly see inside the moment, something only art and sometimes spiritual insight can do. There is an absolute elegance to this technique– amid the chaos, the color and the noise, the raised hoof, the bent leg, the looks of pure joy and terror on the frozen faces – there is an exact recording of the kaleidoscope of human experience. And here is what the filmmaker might be trying to tell us: that death is real and life is happening right now, that we live with the mysterious forces of creation and destruction at all times, and sometimes we simply forget.

By slowing down the film, we see two truths; one is that life is infinitely more colorful, noisy, rich and chaotic than we can possibly comprehend. The second truth is this: that despite the speed at which everything unfolds, there is an odd beauty and harmony to each moment, each experience, to everything that happens to us when we slow down and observe it. This is one of the purposes of art and of ritual – to give us this insight.

The film also portrays the varieties of joy one can experience during the fiesta.  Young people come from all over the world to discover San Fermin for the first time.  For many of them, there is an adrenalin kind of joy that comes from drinking, dancing, total, absolute freedom, and the party itself. In the older runners, who return year after year, this joy is something deeper, not just the exuberant physical joy of a young man, but an inward experience, a transcendence of time and self that resonates deeply into the rest of the year.

Like Hemingway, you do not have to run in the streets of Pamplona to take the essence of the San Fermin deep into your heart and deep into your life.  The fiesta San Fermin offers itself to all who seek it. “He who wishes to experience San Fermin has only to leap into the fiesta,” says one Spanish guidebook.

The Bull Runners of Pamplona will give you an excellent sense of what Hemingway discovered in 1923 and spent his life thinking about. The Bull Runners brought me back to these beautiful streets in Navarre that felt oddly familiar the first time I saw them.  It reconfirmed for me that moment when I understood that yes, there are bulls, and sometimes there are narrow streets with no exit, but with a little courage, and joy, (and maybe more courage), you let go of your fear and join in the noise and color and chaos of this wildly unpredictable, joyful thing called life.  – Allie

The Bull Runners of Pamplona can be rented or purchased from

Here is the trailer: