La Bola Negra

Yesterday I had an amazing double feature of foreign films at the Broadway starting with La Bola Negra.  I went into this pretty blind and I was absolutely blown away by it!  In 1932, Carlos (Milo Quifes) applies for membership to an exclusive club in Granada, Spain but is blackballed over rumors that he is a homosexual.  Vincente (Antonio de la Torre), his wealthy and prominent father, demands that he return to the club and deny the rumors even though they are true.  At the exact moment he declares that he is not a homosexual, the club is attacked by a mob and Carlos realizes too late that he has wasted his life by hiding his true self.  In 1937, Sebastian (Guitarricadelafuente) is a trumpet player who survives an attack on his village during the Spanish Civil War but is compelled to join the Nationalist forces.  He is ordered to guard Rafael Rodriguez Rapun (Miguel Bernardeau), a wounded Republican prisoner of war, and eventually falls in love with him. Rafael reveals that he was once the lover of the famous playwright Federico Garcia Lorca (Alberto Cortes), and when he learns that he is about to be executed by firing squad, he begs Sebastian to find and preserve one of Lorca's plays.  In 2017, Alberto (Carlos Gonzalez) is a struggling playwright who lives in Madrid with his boyfriend Juan Pablo (Julio Torres).  He receives an inheritance from the maternal grandfather he never knew which gives him the strength to move forward in his personal and professional life.  The narrative goes back and forth between the three timelines, which all have distinct visual styles (my favorite is the theatrical production design used in the 1932 timeline), and they are eventually connected by Lorca's unfinished play La Bola Negra.  The story is extremely layered and I loved the powerful themes about queer representation in art inspiring the courage to live authentically, particularly the scenes between Sebastian and the cabaret singer Nene Romero (Penelope Cruz), as well as the trauma of its erasure on future generations.  The camera work is incredibly dynamic and I was completely mesmerized by a flamenco dance in a bar by Carlos and a sequence in which Nene entertains the troops.  I loved the music so much, especially the song "El pueblo quiere sangre" which features the Spanish guitar (I've already listened to it innumerable times).  Finally, the performances are all very moving (I was in tears multiple times).  Guitarricadeafuente, especially, is heartbreaking in one of the most passionate scenes I've seen on screen (in which the characters do not even touch each other).  This is a beautiful and sprawling epic that I loved and highly recommend (it will definitely be among my favorites this year).