El Baile de los 41 (2020)

Dance of the 41 is a very confused movie. It's a film about the closet, but the risks taken by these closeted men – and the main character in particular – are terrifying, and I was supremely anxious the entire film. The trouble with David Pablos's movie, though, is that he doesn't really have anything to say about the homophobia that is his movie's subject. The closet is left uninterrogated here, and this movie makes us feel as though we want the protagonist to do a better job of being closeted. (Some of this might have to do with the fact that we know absolutely nothing about turn-of-the-20th-century México when this film is set. What exactly are the men doing that is illegal? Is it transvestism? Sodomy? Prostitution? This film does not tell us.)

This film sees the central love story between the two men as sad or sweet or something, and that's nice and all, but Dance of the 41 also takes the side of the culture, seeing their behavior as basically bad for society and damaging to those around them. No one makes any passionate speeches on behalf of these men; indeed, no one even articulates the logic of freedom in this movie. It's rough going.

All of this discomfort is made much better by the truly beautiful costuming and the very lovely production design. And of course Alfonso Herrera and Emiliano Zurita are very handsome. But I'm not sure any of that is enough to make Dance of the 41 worth watching. (If you do want to watch, though, it's on Netflix.)