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The Spanish film "La Bola Negra" has been a consistent hit at film festivals. It took the directing prize at Cannes, won the People's Choice Award in Toronto and the Audience Award in Sydney. Critic Bob Mondello says it is a sweeping historical epic that springs from a literary mystery.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: The film takes inspiration from a lost play by queer Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA BOLA NEGRA")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, speaking Spanish).
MONDELLO: ...That has puzzled scholars for decades.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA BOLA NEGRA")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, speaking Spanish) La Bola Negra. There are only four pages that exist from this play.
MONDELLO: Four pages, though, that directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, known together as Los Javis, have spun into a sprawling, swoony epic that has lives short-circuited by war, prejudice, and a love kept hidden across three interlocking timelines. We begin in 1937 as a quaint village is assembling a small brass band to welcome soldiers in the Spanish Civil War only to be bombed by them.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA BOLA NEGRA")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #1: (Singing in Spanish).
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)
MONDELLO: Sebastian, a trumpeter, escapes the carnage but is forced to join the fascist army to survive. He's tasked with extracting information from a leftist prisoner to whom he's surprised to find himself attracted, a member of a theater troupe.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA BOLA NEGRA")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character, speaking Spanish).
MONDELLO: But even as they become close - nothing to say, asks Sebastian...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA BOLA NEGRA")
GUITARRICADELAFUENTE: (As Sebastian, speaking Spanish).
MONDELLO: Rafael proves elusive.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA BOLA NEGRA")
MIGUEL BERNARDEAU: (As Rafael Rodriguez Rapun, speaking Spanish).
MONDELLO: "I've forgotten all the words," he replies. Then there's a second story set before the war. Carlos, a young man from a wealthy family, is being considered for admission to an exclusive casino.
(SOUNDBITE OF METAL CLACKING)
MONDELLO: The members vote anonymously by rolling balls into a container - white for admission, bola blanca, black for rejection...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA BOLA NEGRA")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Bola negra.
MONDELLO: Carlos, who the members suspect of being gay, is rejected then sent back by his father with orders to deny the rumors and be what you're meant to be...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA BOLA NEGRA")
ANTONIO DE LA TORRE: (As Vicente, speaking Spanish).
MONDELLO: ...A man.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA BOLA NEGRA")
DE LA TORRE: (As Vicente, speaking Spanish).
MONDELLO: The third story - centering on Alberto, a comfortably out queer grad student - picks up threads of the first two some eight decades later. And the way it weaves those threads together - well, that's a ravishing, epically rich tale in itself.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LA BOLA NEGRA")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #2: (Singing in Spanish).
MONDELLO: You can see in some moments - especially in a subplot involving a sultry singer played by Penelope Cruz and another where a character gets swept up in dance - that Los filmmaking Javis admired the work of Pedro Almodovar, though their approach adds epic sweep to his arsenal of cinematic tricks. While the film was made for a fraction of what most Hollywood pictures cost, it looks and feels lavish as it leaps across decades from bombed-out cities to snow-capped Andalusian mountains. And Los Javis have a rising star in pop singer/songwriter and first-time actor Guitarricadelafuente, who both supplies the film's achingly romantic theme, "La Nieve," "The Snow"...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LA NIEVE")
GUITARRICADELAFUENTE: (Singing in Spanish).
MONDELLO: ...And plays conflicted trumpeter Sebastian with wrenching innocence and soulful conviction.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LA NIEVE")
GUITARRICADELAFUENTE: (Singing in Spanish).
MONDELLO: His story is central to the film's themes of remembrance, of making choices, of the ripple effects of those choices through time. This country, says a character late in the film, has too many love stories buried in the fields. Los Javis have resurrected a few with force and artistry in "La Bola Negra." I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LA NIEVE")
GUITARRICADELAFUENTE: (Singing in Spanish). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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