Presented in the Special Screenings section of the recent San Sebastián International Film Festival, Fate is a comedy created and directed by Paco Plaza and Pablo Guerrero. They also devised the story, adapted into a screenplay by Diana Rojo and Borja González Santaolalla, and it lands on Disney+ this Wednesday 8 October. Starring Óscar Jaenada and Ricardo Gómez, the series follows how a shy taxi driver unexpectedly becomes the chauffeur to the Maestro, a bullfighting legend who comes out of retirement to reclaim his lost prestige, and the young man brings him luck… or so they say.

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Shot near – though not inside – major bullrings such as those in Málaga, Madrid, Talavera de la Reina, Zaragoza and Benidorm, the series confirms that Plaza is a versatile filmmaker, at ease with horror (the [REC] [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
interview : Julio Fernández
fiche film] saga or The Grandmother [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Paco Plaza
fiche film]), culinary documentary (Mugaritz. No Bread, No Dessert, which won an award a year ago in San Sebastián’s Culinary Zinema section), and now the tricky climes of comedy – a wandering bull-fighting comedy, to boot.

He bravely traverses this sharp-horned terrain with flying colours thanks to the collaboration of his friend Pablo Guerrero (Perdiendo el juicio and Between Lands). Together, they take the camera far beyond Afternoons of Solitude [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Albert Serra
fiche film], following a loyal entourage not unlike the one in Albert Serra’s documentary. Thus, the viewer is plunged into their parties and predicaments with the same bewildered look as the protagonist, an outsider to that excessive, loud, exhausting world. Yet, against all odds, we have a blast, even if we don't subscribe to that very Andalusian, macho rite riddled with the superstitions evoked by the Spanish title (La suerte).

Peppered with surprise cameos we won’t spoil, and filled with catchy tracks (Lole y Manuel, Golpes Bajos, Rosalía, C Tangana and Junco all liven up the plot), the series never shows a bull suffering – although it does show animal-rights complaints – and, as we drift between feast and revelry, bullfight and tribute, it uses an abundance of humour to address seemingly irreconcilable differences, rivalries that end up morphing into something akin to complicity, camaraderie or homoeroticism. At its heart, it’s a Romani bromance.

Shot on 16 mm with cinematography by Pablo Rosso, Fate also nods to job insecurity, recalls in its dialogue that great bullfighting series Juncal (created by Jaime de Armiñán in 1989 and toplined by the great Paco Rabal), and serves up some Berlanga-esque showstoppers led by characters who really deserve to be clutching a bull's ears and tail. Among them are the turns by Goya-worthy supporting players such as Carlos Bernardino and Pedro Bachura, Andalusian “stars” as charismatic and recognisable as they are over-the-top and riotously funny – the kind you could go on an endless bender with, although you’d never introduce them to your parents.

Fate is an original Disney+ series produced in collaboration with Boomerang TV, consisting of six episodes of around 30 minutes each.