Sometimes films feel more like poetry than prose. La bola negra is filmed with one foot in realism and another in impressionism. Los Javis have taken a gem of Spanish Queer Literature and built around it a soaring and gorgeous epic which imagines a legacy of queer art throughout the decades. Always made with an eye to real beauty, La bola negra wrestles with our connections to the queer ancestors, both figurative and in this story's case, literal, that have brought us to where we are.
I kept being swept up in the majesty of this film. Without feeling overwrought, La bola negra consistently centres itself in beautiful settings and the visuals evoke the characters, and their passions and struggles. The way Ambrossi and Calvo so seemingly effortlessly weave their story through eras and wars and passions, feels so liberating. Survival through trauma in this sort of historic queer epics, is par for the course yet La bola negra finds a freshness, perhaps in the way it embraces a realness to its queer story telling, a queerness to its epic story telling. It doesn't shy away from its purpose and beautiful paints it across the screen.
The film's thesis, that we do not live until we embrace who we truly are, is boldly spoken and lived by the characters in this movie. There is also, through its time-spanning plot, a sense of wrestling with what we owe those who paved our way. The film's most heart-wrenching moments for me were not necessarily the pieces of drama from the historical scenes of war and fascism but the revelations of the modern relationships. There is something quite beautiful about these two modern queer artists making this film from the fragments of a past queer artist's work and building on it until it becomes something even more than either could have imagined.
The film's cast comes together so beautifully spanning the years of the story. From Cruz's spectacular cameo, which imbues the film with a joyous yearning, through the young leads of each time period, I couldn't take my eyes off of them. They truly become who they are portraying.
La bola negra will haunt you and inspire you, asking you to reflect on how we got here and where we have come from. It is about our connections through art and beauty to our honest selves.
La bola negra
Starring: Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Milo Quifes, Lola Dueñas, Penélope Cruz, Glenn Close
Directors: Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo
Writers: Alberto Conejero, Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo
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