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“La Bola Negra,” a new film by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, dramatizes gay repression and liberation across three interconnected stories. At first, the year is 1937 and viewers are thrust deep into the Spanish Civil War, where a Nationalist soldier and a wounded Republican freedom fighter exchange furtive glances. By the end, it’s 2017, and a Madrid-based historian need only look to Grindr to satisfy an urge. The movie “wants to be a sweeping historical epic of gay longing—a film about what it means to be a man who desires other men in times of war and peace,” Justin Chang writes. Instead, the directors have produced “a film that insists, arrogantly and aggressively, on its own monumentality”. Even compelling performances from Glenn Close, Penélope Cruz, and Lola Dueñas fail to rescue the extravagantly overwrought film. Read Chang's full review: newyorker.com/culture/the-cu…