Sumptuous and poetic exploration of queer love under fascism and the vestiges of repression that leak out into the future.

Directed by two Javiers – Calvo and Ambrossi who seem to have worked mainly in television – it is loosely connected to a real unpublished play by Federico García Lorca called La Bola Negra, where only a few pages exist. This fills out the story of its creation.

We cross between three intersecting stories. Rafael (Miguel Bernardeau) is a young well to do gay man in 1932 Spain. Under pressure from his father, he applies to be a member of the casino where the vote is cast with white and black balls. He is ‘black balled’ because he is gay and his father exhorts him to deny the rumours in order to maintain their social standing.

In 1937, we see Sebastián (the rather delightfully named Guitarricadelafuente) who is a fervent supporter of the nationalists (the fascist faction) who is caught up in the war and discovers that it is not all as idealas he expects it to be. He crosses paths with Rafael, albeit on opposite sides of the conflict when Rafael is captured, awaiting trial as his injuries heal enough to allow him to be possibly executed.

And sometimes jarringly but in a way that creates a frisson, we are in 2017 with Alberto (Carlos González), who hates his chaotic mother and is sent on a journey into the past when his maternal grandfather dies and leaves him an envelope.

The connecting themes are about being gay under fascism and how that violent repression and oppression destroys lives over generations. It is a sumptuous and epic story, underpinned by some realities of the Spanish Civil War, like any civil war where neighbours turn on each other and it is so easy to punish others so that you feel more safe.

Of note is a glorious scene in the second act with Penelope Cruz as a cabaret singer, and Glen Close speaking Spanish convincingly as a US academic exploring the works of Lorca.

It really got me in the feels, particularly some overlapping and anachronistic, dream like scenes towards the end that still make me feel emotional. The chandelier in the snow, the skiers coming down the mountain.

It perhaps was a little bit in love with its ending, and I don’t know that it needed to state and restate its message, particularly showing the scenes of Lorca – we knew this without needing to be shown it.