Dance of the 41
Dancing in the dark - or the only way is gay sex.
David Pablos’ film brings to our attention the constant problems that homosexuality has prompted down the centuries. It is still not a world where gay and lesbian people are automatically accepted as normal members of society. However, attitudes have changed along with the decriminalisation of homosexuality– in some but not all countries, for it beggars belief that there are still many societies who fight against what they consider to be sexual deviation. Such opinions were rife at the time and the place in which Pablos’ film is set, the director’s partially fictionalised account of the real-life events of the time.
It is Mexico City in 1901 and Amada Diaz, the daughter of the President of Mexico, is marrying Ignacio de la Torre, a member of the President’s cabinet. The bridegroom is, however, gay and their wedding night proves to be a disaster. The bride and her father are desperate for Amada to conceive but Ignacio proves to be incapable of impregnating his new wife. As a means of escape he is inducted into a gay club where anything goes including transvestism, and where he enjoys the entertainments on offer from the other members and from one in particular, Evaristo Rivas. However, on the night of the club’s drag ball – the ‘dance’ of the title – there is a police raid and all forty-one of the members are arrested. What follows proves to be a unique scandal in the Mexican polite society of the time.
It is a sumptuously made film, beautifully acted, dressed, shot and directed without any gratuitous salaciousness or sentimentality. It appears to be brutally honest about an ever-interesting topic and one that is never really ever going to go away – the problem of the outsider in society. Pablos has gathered an exceptional cast, including Alfonso Herrera as Ignacio, Mabel Cadena as his wife Amada, Emiliano Rivas as the male lover Porfirio, and Fernando Becerril as President Diaz. However, together with a large ensemble of players, the film proves to be both entertaining and illuminating as well as being thought-provoking enough even for today’s currently changing lifestyles.
Original title: El baile de los 41.
MICHAEL DARVELL
Cast: Alfonso Herrera, Emiliano Zurita, Mabel Cadena, Fernando Becerril, Rodrigo Virago, Fernando Echevarria, Sergio Solis, Alvaro Guerrero, Paulina Alvarez Muñoz.
Dir David Pablos, Pro Pablo Cruz, Marta Nuñez Puerto and Arturo Sampson, Screenplay Monika Revilla, Ph Carolina Costa, Pro Des Daniela Schneider, Ed Soledad Salfate, Music Carlos Ayhllon and Andrea Balency-Béarn, Costumes Rocella Evans.
Cacana Films/El Estudio/Bananeira Filmes-Netflix.
99 mins. Mexico. 2020. Rel: 12 May 2021. Available on Netflix. Cert. 18.