La Bola Negra (The Black Ball), composed of 3 crisscrossing storylines, is part historical drama, part modern-day detective story. Above all, it is a searching examination of Spanish history and a reclamation of a queer past that might have been lost to time.
Set in 1932, 1937 and 2017, it follows three gay men as they embark upon transformative journeys of discovery and reconciliation. The connections between them only gradually become apparent and elucidate the film's ambitious design.
Filmmakers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (known as the Javis, much like American duo The Daniels) had made only one prior feature before finding themselves in the Cannes Competition. A Best Director award later, La Bola Negra announces itself as one of the biggest titles set for awards consideration this fall. Such is Netflix's belief in the project that La Bola Negra will become the first film in the streamer's history to receive a full 45-day theatrical window.
The 1937 storyline centers on musician Sebastián (Guitarricadelafuente), who is forcibly conscripted into the Nationalists' army during the Spanish Civil War, after his village is slaughtered in an air raid. At a makeshift military hospital, he's tasked with watching captured Republican prisoner-of-war Rafael (Miguel Bernardeau). Sebastián and Rafael, divided across ideological lines, develop an unexpected bond, and Rafael, marked for execution, tasks Sebastián with acquiring something precious from an address in Madrid.
The 1932 narrative follows wealthy young man Carlos (Milo Quifes) in Granada on the eve of the Republican overthrow of the Spanish monarchy. He goes to the local gentleman's club to be admitted, but is humiliated and denied entry because of rumors that he is gay. The club votes with each member handing in a ball, white or black, for accepting or rejecting a candidate.
These black balls give the film its title, La Bola Negra. The 2017 portion charts historian Alberto (Carlos González) as he researches Spanish queer history and receives an unexpected and mysterious inheritance upon his estranged grandfather's death.
La Bola Negra is notable for being a work of biographical fiction and literary restoration. The 1937 section is explicitly an adaptation of the 2013 play La piedra oscura (The Dark Stone), by Spanish playwright Alberto Conejero, who wrote the screenplay alongside the Javis.
While Sebastián is fictional, Miguel Bernardeau's Rafael is, in fact, Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, the real-life footballer and actor who was captured under more or less the same circumstances as shown in the film. His lover was celebrated queer writer Federico García Lorca, who started the novel La Bola Negra before Franco's Nationalist regime unceremoniously assassinated him. Only four pages survive.
The 1932 portion is a continuation of the story, and García Lorca himself appears as a character in the film, played by Alberto Cortés. The 2017 story was created for the film, and its protagonist effectively serves as a stand-in for the Javis, who are seeking to rehabilitate Spain's queer past.
The Javis have said their stated goal was to create a gay epic, made by gay artists and starring gay performers in the lead roles. On their own terms, they have largely succeeded. La Bola Negra has sweep and scope, privileging the voices and desires of gay men at key junctures during Spain's tumultuous history. The film is also staged with verve and vigor, in frames teeming with life and humanity, lending credence to the Javis' Cannes directing win.
One of the chief pleasures of La Bola Negra is its spectacular photography and production. The period recreation is exemplary and consistently immersive and transporting. The settings are numerous, varied and striking, especially in 1932 and 1937, with scenes of civilian life impressing as much as the scenes of war. Costumes are character- and era-defining.
The sensational lensing evokes the spirit of the period and makes La Bola Negra seem like a classic film from the 60s and 70s. The artisanal look might remind viewers of Giuseppe Tornatore's films. Many scenes are staged with impressive blocking and mise-enscene, longer sequence shots, swarms of people populating the frame, background and foreground action, and an eye for picturesque and striking composition.
Several images are memorable and linger in the mind: The youthful soldiers frolicking naked in the sea's froth. A flare illuminating a nighttime drive on the beach. Skiers dashing past in period gear on snow-covered mountains. Befitting a gay picture, there is eroticism of the male body, but extremely tasteful and restrained. There's only one brief sex scene, and the Javis overwhelming focus is to highlight aesthetic beauty and yearning rather than overt carnality.
While the individual parts impress, the coming together is a bit of a comedown. La Bola Negra tries to do too much and, as a result, shortchanges some of its potential. Just when the Javis should be detonating their three climaxes of their triptych, the dramatic potential dissipates, and all three stories careen to a crawl. An extended denouement centered on a dead character's epiphany in the afterlife, imagined as the snow-covered mountain, relies on voice-over to communicate its subtext in an otherwise visually oriented film.
How the film's storylines cohere will not be disclosed here, but suffice it to say that certain choices made in the construction dull the impact of certain reveals and lower the stakes because the audience has advance information before the stories reach their conclusion. The generally fluid editing creates meaning by overlaying sights and sounds from the three narratives, but can also confuse and disorient viewers and sap individual storylines of forward momentum.
The large ensemble delivers committed and emotionally searching performances. In his debut performance, singer Álvaro Lafuente Calvo, known by his stage name Guitarricadelafuente, carries the film on his shoulders and ably conveys Sebastián's ideological ambivalence and search for emotional absolution.
His scene partner, Miguel Bernardeau, is the film's designated beefcake and the object of Sebastián's (and the Javis') erotic gaze, but also brings pathos as a stand-in for the failed Republican cause. Penelope Cruz leaves a lasting impression as a vaudeville act performing to boost the morale of the Nationalists' troops. Her two musical numbers are barnstormers. And Italian star Lorenzo Zurzolo, playing an Italian soldier in the Nationalists' ranks to represent the incestuous dalliance between Franco and Mussolini's regimes, impresses as the gruff, macho Riccardo, an antagonist to Sebastián, Rafael and Cruz's Nené.
Elsewhere, Milo Quifes as Carlos needs to be diffident and retiring, but has an applause-worthy single-take dance number. Finally, the trio of Carlos González as Alberto, Lola Dueñas as his mother and Glenn Close as a queer studies scholar carry the modern-day section. Close has a small role but performs well in Spanish and, as a non-Spanish character, elucidates the suppressive and obfuscating approach Spaniards take towards their elapsed history.
La Bola Negra is certainly an arresting and notable work. Its melange of history, memory and queer identity might not satisfy all viewers, but it is pulled off with undeniable aplomb and imagination, and its images are sinuous and memorable.
The Javis are not without their moments of silliness, though. In a sober, classically inclined film, they do find instances of camp, as when a character blurts out, "The heart of a faggot is an ocean full of secrets, " mimicking Rose's line from James Cameron's Titanic. Moments of levity do not detract from the gravity of La Bola Negra. Hopefully, audiences will give it a chance on the big screen, as Netflix intends, because the sprawling canvas of the Javis' vision deserves to be experienced in a theatrical setting.