The Black Ball review the complicated secrets of gay sexuality in Spain are brilliantly told

A narrative triptych follows three Spanish men across different periods. In 1932, Carlos seeks entry to an elite casino club in Granada but is blackballed in an elaborate ceremony after rumors of homosexuality. In 1939, Sebastian is enlisted into the pro-Franco nationalist army and falls in love with a wounded Republican prisoner-of-war he is assigned to guard. In 2017, Alberto studies queer identities and transgressive themes in 1920s popular music, then receives a strange bequest that worsens his strained relationship with his depressed, rage-filled mother. Across time, sexuality is denied, transformed into mystery, and expressed through poetic, restorative imagery.

"In 1932, Carlos (Milo Quifes) is a young man of a good family in Granada, who applies for membership of the elite Casino club but is turned down on the grounds of his rumoured homosexuality, blackballed in an oppressively elaborate ceremony presided over by politicians and clergymen, in which the white and black balls are solemnly rolled down a special chute."

"In 1939, Sebastian (played by the actor and musician Alvaro Lafuente Calvo) finds himself chaotically enlisted into the pro-Franco nationalist army during the civil war and falls in love with the wounded Republican prisoner-of-war that he is supposed to be guarding. This is Rafael (Miguel Bernardeau), an actor and footballer with Atletico Madrid, an impossibly handsome, captivatingly vulnerable man whose bandages ooze blood like the tears of a miraculous statue."

"In 2017, Alberto (Carlos Gonzalez) is a student and failed playwright doing postgraduate research into queer identities and transgressive themes in the popular music of the 1920s; he receives a strange bequest from his late grandfather which worsens his relationship with his depressed and rage-filled mother Teresa (played by Almodovar regular Lola Duenas). Over lunch with him she argues, drinks heavily and does a line of cocaine."

"Lorca's words, only mystery keeps us alive and in fact the small regret I have about this superlatively acted and beautifully shot film is that once the connection between the three narrative strands is explained, some of the mystery and poetry is lost."

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