Dance of the Forty One

In Mexico in 1901 Ignacio de la Torre, son-in-law of President Porfirio Díaz, keeps up a respectable marriage while living inside a secret circle in the city. One night the police raid a private ball; inside are forty-one men, half of them dressed as women. The story reaches the press, the names are counted, and the number forty-one is used as an insult in Mexico for a century. David Pablos based the film on that real raid and made the subject not the scandal but who class protects: the one name missing from the list is the son-in-law's. The telling is slow, heavily designed and distant. It went out on Netflix and reopened discussion of the event's place in Mexican history. Who it is for: viewers who like queer history and period drama. Who it is not for: anyone wanting pace and open sentiment.