"La bola negra" is a Queer Epic Spanning Three Generations

Art is precious, and when we lose art, we lose a piece of our history. As someone who writes about film, the movies that haunt me are the ones I will never see. Oh, sure, I know I technically can’t see everything before I die anyway, but there are films where the option to see them simply isn’t on the table. From unreleased movies like James Franco’s The Long Home (eleven years and still waiting for a release) to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Mountain Eagle (of which only a few still shots survive), these are the movies that keep a film historian up at night. This is why La bola negra had such a personal impact on me: because, as someone who has studied history through the art made over time, I understand how others can do the same.

La bola negra tells the story of three generations of queer men. The men live different lives at different times, and their experiences reflect the periods in which they live. One man wants to join a gambling club in the 1930s, but his membership is rejected because he is suspected of being homosexual. Another man fights in a war for the human rights of others that he is not granted himself. The final man lives his queer life openly and without shame or condemnation, but does not appreciate the sacrifices made by previous generations (or even his own history). What none of these men know is that their fates and destinies are intertwined by a play called La bola negra, a real-life play of which only a few pages exist.

In reality, this is because the author of the play, Federico García Lorca, was killed during the Spanish Civil War, leaving one of history’s first plays with an openly gay protagonist unfinished. For the LGBTQ+ community, this is still considered a huge loss of its history. Here, the directors have envisioned a “what if” story in which not only was the rest of the play written, but it was also lost amid the chaos of life. This is how the three stories are connected, and as the story unravels, the circumstances surrounding how the play becomes the connecting thread between everyone become clearer (and, in many cases, more emotional).

Much like Quentin Tarantino made a cathartic “what if” story with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I suspect La bola negra will give people who study LGBTQ+ history a sense of closure that real life did not provide. At this point, I’m going to sidestep this movie for a moment and briefly take a detour to a documentary I have watched several times in my lifetime. It is called The Celluloid Closet, and it shows how, throughout the history of film, gay people have been able to trace their history and understand where they stood in the world. I always hoped similar films would be made so that Latinos, Asians, Christians, and atheists could trace their histories through the movies we have made over the past 100 years.

That more of these types of movies haven’t been made is a disappointment, but films like La bola negra show that even if all the pieces of history aren't with us, stories can still be told, and great art will continue to be made to tell the stories that need to be told. The movie was picked up by Netflix; however, unlike most of its releases, this one is actually receiving a wide theatrical release before dropping on the streaming service. I am overjoyed to share this detail because La bola negra is an epic in every way.

The story is personal through its characters, yet manages to span generations of their family history. The cinematography is sweeping during the war sequences, yet intimate during personal revelations. The actors (most of whom I don’t know, though a couple of well-cast celebrities do show up) are giving passionate performances on screen, as if they are fully aware of how important the film they are making will be to the queer audiences watching it. In every way, La bola negra is one of the great cinematic achievements of the year, and it’s nice to see that Netflix (for once) realized this and did right by the film and the audience this time around.