Maspalomas

There are films you don't just watch - you feel them trembling inside you. Maspalomas is one of those rare ones. It smells of salt and sweat, of skin under the sun and rain on your face, of desire and guilt, of everything we were and everything we still fear to become. Vicente, at 76, carrying his scars like medals of survival, stands for all those who loved in silence, who learned too late that freedom is a muscle - one that withers when left unused.

Goenaga and Arregi film as if they were caressing a wound - tenderly, but without fear. They take us from the glowing light of Maspalomas to the gray drizzle of San Sebastián, from exposed flesh to a locked soul, reminding us that bodies age, but desire does not expire. Coming out at twenty is courage; coming out at seventy is revolution.

Maspalomas is not just a story about aging and homosexuality - it's a hymn to dignity, to tenderness, to the right to keep feeling. It speaks of forgiveness, of reunion, of the beauty of no longer hiding. It's unafraid of sex or silence, because looking straight at the truth is itself a political act.

José Ramón Soroiz is magnificent - fragile yet towering. His Vicente doesn't seek pity but presence. He shows us that freedom isn't something you win once, but something you must reclaim every single day - especially when no one expects you to anymore.

Maspalomas is cinema that caresses and confronts, that breathes with truth. A luminous call to express ourselves without apology, to never again return to any kind of closet.

I loved the movie. It opens with quite erotic episodes, almost uncomfortable to watch in a cinema, and this sincerity and openness is probably something that is more typical for Spanish movies or European rather than American cinema. Despite those scenes the movie is not frivolous at all, it covers heavy topics about self acceptance, the feeling of guilt, inner struggles, family dramas, burden we carry inside, toxic masculinity, etc etc. Main character is not too likeable - he makes it difficult to root for him first, but he grows on you, also thanks to his interactions with his daughter and roommate, both played by two great actors, too. I am very glad that movies now bring forward the problems of aging queer people, this is something not much discussed while those people are around and they have their struggles and need support and empathy.