Awards season is approaching. Will this queer Spanish epic upset ‘The Odyssey’?

By David Mack, CNN

(CNN) — In Christopher Nolan’s take on “The Odyssey,” there are several nail-biting scenes in which Trojan soldiers face off against much larger foes, including a towering cyclops and an army of behemoth soldiers. Going into this awards season, “The Odyssey” is shaping up to be that giant, seen as the top contender for Oscar glory in several categories.

Enter a potential giant-slayer. Hitting cinemas on Friday after a rhapsodic run at several major top film festivals, “La Bola Negra” may just be the film to finally win Netflix its long-coveted best picture prize. The streaming giant plans to run the Spanish film for 47 days in theaters prior to its digital platform debut — amounting to an unprecedently long cinematic runway for the company— in the hopes that the movie will charm audiences, critics and Oscar voters.

Hollywood analysts believe “La Bola Negra” may be just the type of sweeping yet tender movie that might turn this awards season into a battle of David vs. Goliath.

“I think they feel that this is as close as they’ve gotten to best picture, kind of maybe ever,” said Kyle Buchanan, the former awards season columnist for the New York Times set to launch his own podcast this month about Hollywood. “Certainly, ‘Roma’ won a lot of Oscars [in 2019], but I think that was a ‘head movie,’ and ‘heart movies’ typically are what prevail at the Oscars. They know they’ve got a ‘heart movie’ with ‘La Bola Negra.’”

On paper, “The Odyssey” and “La Bola Negra” could not be more different. One is a mostly sexless, sword-and-sandal epic with a budget in the hundreds of millions (and a box office of more than $1.7 billion), stacked with top Hollywood stars and helmed by an already Oscar-winning director. The other is a subtitled work of queer yearning and romance made for under $17 million by two Spaniards (and a cast) who are all largely unknown outside their home country. (Glenn Close and Penélope Cruz pop up in smaller roles, with the latter almost stealing the movie in an unforgettable turn as an entertainer of the troops.)

Still, industry observers think “La Bola Negra” may well have the juice needed to go all the way. Clayton Davis, chief awards editor at Variety, has predicted a nomination for the movie, writing that “‘La Bola Negra’ has the chance to rewrite Netflix’s Oscar history.” Similarly, Richard Lawson, former chief critic for Vanity Fair, has said the Spanish film is “right there in the frontrunner pack.”

A love story to queerness itself

Directed by creative partners (and former romantic partners) Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (called ‘Los Javis’ in their native Spain and known to some Americans for their TV series “Veneno”), “La Bola Negra” weaves together three stories of queer identity connected to the Spanish Civil War. In the first, a teenage Carlos (Milo Quifes) in 1932 fails to gain membership into a social club, whose members vote against him using a blackball ballot system amid rumors of his homosexuality. In 1937, a young fascist conscript named Sebastián (the mononymous musician Guitarricadelafuente in his debut acting performance) is assigned to guard a wounded Republican prisoner of war (Miguel Bernardeau) to whom he begins feeling drawn. And in 2017, the directionless historian and former playwright Alberto (Carlos González) finds his life upended when he’s left a surprise inheritance from a grandfather he didn’t know he had.

With shades of “Angels in America,” the movie is an ambitious and sumptuous portrait of identity, repression and what gets sacrificed in the long march of history. It’s not necessarily a love story between characters, but a love story to queerness itself. “What do we miss when we deny ourselves?” one character says towards the film’s almost fantastical ending. “Life.”

Described by queer outlet Them as “one of the best LGBTQ+ movies of the century,” the film is inspired by the life and death of gay Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, who was murdered by fascist forces in 1936 and left behind an unfinished play called “La Bola Negra.” The movie’s 1937 storyline also draws on the 2013 play “La piedra oscura” by Alberto Conejero, with whom Los Javis share a screenwriting credit.

A festival darling

In May, Los Javis shared the best director prize (along with the Polish filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski, director of “Fatherland”) at the Cannes Film Festival, where the movie premiered to a 20-minute standing ovation and was swiftly scooped up by Netflix.

Buchanan recalled covering the festival for the New York Times and “levitating” as he exited a screening of the movie: “Most people came out of that flush with excitement, faces red with tears, and just the feeling of, ‘Oh, finally. This is the movie of the festival, the movie that people are going to want to talk about, the movie that is definitely going to be a major player in the cinematic year.’”

Since then, “La Bola Negra” has only gained speed as it rolled through other festivals, notching audience wins in San Sebastián and Toronto. The latter win bodes particularly well for Netflix’s Oscar hopes. Fourteen of the last 16 TIFF People’s Choice Award winners have scored an Academy Award nod for best picture, with four — “Nomadland,” “Green Book,” “12 Years a Slave” and “The King’s Speech” — claiming the top prize altogether. As Spain’s official entry in the international category at the Oscars, the film is favored to win that category, but it may well become the first foreign language movie since “Parasite” to take home the night’s top prize in 2020.

Other top contenders this awards season

With 10 Best Picture slots up for grabs, other buzzy films seem poised to join the final slate of nominees, like “Project Haily Mary,” “The Invite,” “Dune: Part Three” and “Wild Horse Nine,” a movie set for release in November and which stars John Malkovich as a dying CIA officer dispatched to Easter Island in the runup to Chile’s 1973 coup. Other wildcard movies could include “Artificial,” Luca Guadagnino’s movie on OpenAI, or even Nathan Fielder’s surreal documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, “You Can See Everything.” (Although it was dubbed “the movie of the year” by New York magazine, “You Can See Everything” still faces long odds as no documentary has ever been nominated in the top category.)

Malkovich, a two-time Oscar nominee, is seen as an early favorite to win the best actor prize, although Andrew Scott in “Elsinore,” Robert Pattinson in “Primetime,” and Matt Damon in “The Odyssey” are all also on the hunt for their first acting wins.

For best actress, analysts have positioned Julianne Moore as the odds-on favorite to take home a second Oscar for her turn in the comedy “The Debut,” in which she plays a meek mother who finds herself in the world of community theater. Inde Navarrette, star of the runaway hit “Obsession,” also seems poised to earn her first-ever nomination.

The cast of “La Bola Negra” will all compete in the supporting categories, with Guitarricadelafuente and Cruz seen as the film’s best chances. Thanks to a recent change in Academy rules, Cruz could potentially be nominated twice in the same category, should voters want to also recognize her celebrated turn in “The Invite.”

Buchanan said he expects Oscar voters will be charmed by the charisma of the “La Bola Negra” directors and ensemble when campaigning begins in earnest, but given Nolan’s stature in Hollywood and the enormous box office success of “The Odyssey” he believes the Spanish film remains an underdog. “It’s going to be hard to topple ‘The Odyssey,’ but what ‘La Bola Negra’ has a chance to do is rack up a lot of the same nominations and give that movie a run for its money in most categories — and eke out some of those wins,” he said.

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