La Bola Negra review

I loved La Bola Negra. It's a grand, ambitious film, and I can certainly understand why it got so much attention on the festival circuit.

The movie is essentially a triptych, with three stories unfolding across different periods. One takes place during the Spanish Civil War, where a young man whose village and family have been devastated by the Nationalists is conscripted into their army. He becomes involved with an imprisoned rebel soldier, and the two develop a relationship under circumstances where neither of them is really free.

Another storyline imagines a completion of Federico García Lorca's unfinished play La Bola Negra. The film uses the conceit of lost pages and an imagined continuation of Lorca's work, bringing in elements of fantasy and magical realism. The third storyline takes place in modern Spain, where a young man investigating his grandfather's history finds himself connected to the mysteries of the other two stories.

That's a lot to juggle, but I thought the film handled it remarkably well. The transitions between periods are largely seamless. There is a little initial uncertainty as you work out which scenes belong to the Civil War and which are part of the imagined Lorca story. Once you understand that one of these worlds is essentially a fantasy, the structure becomes quite clear.

My favorite of the three stories was actually the modern one. I really enjoyed the young man's investigation of his grandfather's past, particularly his relationship with his mother and the arguments between them. The Civil War storyline was also very compelling. The imagined Lorca material was probably the least interesting to me, although I don't mean that it was bad. I just found the other two stories more engaging.

The relationship between the conscript and the prisoner is very well done. The actors have strong chemistry, and you can see how they find one another in a situation where neither is allowed to be himself. But the power dynamics are complicated. The prisoner has obvious reasons to want one of his captors to care for him, and it's difficult to know exactly how much of the relationship is genuine affection and how much is shaped by those circumstances. At the same time, they share an experience of repressed sexuality that gives their connection real emotional weight.

The acting throughout is excellent. The actor playing the imprisoned soldier was particularly good, as was the lead in the Lorca storyline. I also really liked the modern-day protagonist and his interactions with his mother. I don't have a complaint about the cast. Everyone was solid.

Visually, this is a beautiful movie. The scenery, the direction, and the sheer scope of the production are impressive. It feels like an epic, and it earns that description.

I can't say whether the imagined Lorca material is faithful to what Lorca himself might have written. I don't know enough about his work to make that judgment. But as a storytelling device, it fits the film very well.

The one practical warning I'd give is that this is a long movie. We saw it on a weeknight, and by the end we were exhausted. That's not necessarily a criticism of the pacing, and I don't know that I would cut anything without losing something important. It's just a film you might want to see when you're not already tired.

I gave La Bola Negra four and a half stars. It's not my favorite movie of the year, but that's because I've seen other things I liked a little better, not because there's some glaring defect here. I wouldn't have a problem with it winning major awards. It's beautifully made, impressively acted, and ambitious in a way that actually pays off. I definitely recommend it.