Fantasy and history blur in the celebratory queer epic La Bola Negra

<La Bola Negra>

Los Javis, the creative duo of Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, have crafted a queer epic blending fantasy and history in their film "La Bola Negra." The inspiration for the film stems from the unfinished play by Federico García Lorca, "La Bola Negra," penned by Lorca before his execution during the Spanish Civil War. Los Javis use three narrative threads and three different time periods to weave a rousing celebration of queerness that intertwines past, present, and future.

The centerpiece of the film is the story of Carlos, a wealthy individual blacklisted from his father's casino due to his flamboyant nature. The film also features "Alberto, 2017," a fantasy based on the co-screenwriter's life, and "Sebastián, 1937," which dramatizes Conejero's play about Lorca's legacy. These stories blend together to create a fluid tableau that joyously mixes fantasy with history to convey a profound message about queerness.

In "La Bola Negra," the past is not presented as a sanitized and distant land but as a reality that is in dialogue with the present. The film's aesthetic is characterized by fluid visual transitions, sound cues echoing across time periods, and period details in production design. The past is not an unknowable foreign country but a part of the present that shapes the future.

The film's goal is never attained, but the pursuit continues, emphasizing the importance of collective emancipation and the possibility of a better future.

"La Bola Negra" is more than just a romance; it is a quest and a mythic pursuit of a goal. It is a commentary on the power of queerness as a way of thinking about and seeing the world, defying pragmatism and envisioning world-changing imagination. The film gives Queerness a visual maximalism, allowing its audience a methodology of hope that persists as time dances on.