‘La Bola Negra’ review: Spanish gay drama is one of the best movies of the year

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La bola negra, or the blackball, is an old-school method of social rejection. 

As in: White ball means yes; Blackball means no.

One of its funniest hours was on a 1999 episode of “Frasier.” “Blackball!”, the Crane brothers gleefully yelled to veto each other’s choices as they put together a dinner party guest list. 

But the sprawling and deeply moving Spanish film “La Bola Negra,” which recently won the all-important People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and the top prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival, should be enthusiastically embraced, not coldly shoved aside.

A profound World War II-era gay drama — though not at all what you’d expect from that brief description — it’s one of the best movies of the year. 

Directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, collaborators who go by the fun nickname “Los Javis,” the modestly budgeted film is reminiscent of “The Brutalist” in how it achieves surprising and tactile period visual majesty with pennies. Fifteen-million-dollar “La Bola” looks a lot better than films that were 20 times more costly to make.

It’s hard to shake the haunting image of dust-covered man scaling the rubble of a pile of museum statues, or celebratory fireworks on a beach as a young fighter’s conscience is privately tortured. There’s a surreal snow-covered mountain straight out of Narnia and a paralyzing scene involving a hand and torso that’s as tragically romantic as it gets. This truly is filmmaking at its most beautiful and awe-inspiring. 

And narratively complex. A detailed puzzle, “La Bola” bounces back and forth between different years: 1932, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War and then a giant leap to 2017. Some will be frustrated that the relationship between the trio of threads is not immediately made clear. But give it time. 

There is tremendous satisfaction in the “a-ha!” moment when we finally understand what binds a villager with big-city dreams in ‘32 to a trembling soldier in ‘37 and a young man looking for answers in the 2010s.

The emotional center of “La Bola” is, appropriately, smack dab in the middle: Sebastián (Guitarricadelafuente), a sensitive trumpet player whose town in Spain is bombed by the Italians in 1937 right as they were happily heralding their arrival with music and a party. His mother is killed in the supposedly accidental blast, and he’s forced to join up with the Franco’s Nationalists. 

Guarding the infirmary, quiet Sebastián becomes infatuated with an injured prisoner from the rival Republican faction. He doesn’t know his name — it’s Rafael (the striking and serene Miguel Bernardeau) — and they rarely speak. At first hesitant and confrontational, their tie deepens and intensifies. 

In the most basic sense, this is a “Romeo and Juliet” story with two lovers caught between oppositional warring “houses.” But what gives Sebastián and Rafael so much power is that precious little is openly expressed between them. Individually and together, they’re coming to terms with who they are. There’s barely a word for it yet.

Revelatory Guitarricadelafuente, a wonderful singer making his acting debut, is heartbreaking as the runt of his division. Shimmering and easily shattered like crystal, there’s agony and longing in his eyes — and then, for a brief moment, hope. Smartly, he also sings the film’s sublime signature song, “La Nieve.” The actor is a special find who will no doubt have a hot Hollywood career after this.

Skipping ahead to 2017, the estranged grandfather of Alberto (Carlos González) has just died and left him a mysterious inheritance. What’s in it, a manuscript, leads him on an emotional and revealing investigation into his family’s unknown past.

The 1932 portion is the most ethereal and uncanny of the three: A local man (Milo Quifes) tries to gain membership in his village’s exclusive men’s club, only he’s “blackballed” because of scandalous rumors going around town.

All of this seems random and disparate, but in the end the ingredients potently emulsify.

Penelope Cruz and Glenn Close make small but meaningful appearances as, respectively, a forward-thinking cabaret singer during the war named Nene and Isabelle, a scholar of the writer Federico Garcia Lorca in 2017.

Lorca, the Spanish gay writer of “Yerma” and “The House of Bernarda Alba” who was killed by the Nationalists in 1936, is a major force in the movie. He actually wrote a play called “La Bola Negra” in 1936 that was left unfinished because of his murder. The rare drama of the day to feature a gay character, Lorca only was able to complete four pages.

With their gorgeous movie, Los Javis, as ambitious as they are empathetic, let Lorca’s partial piece live on and graciously expound on it, while building bridges between generations of struggle. Don’t miss it.