Maspalomas: Sea, Gay Sex and No Sun
In Maspalomas, filmmakers Aitor Arregi and José Mari Goenaga take us on a harrowing, tender journey, where a gay man in his seventies must confront not only the frailty of his own body, but the fragility of social freedom.
Maspalomas begins like a liberated dream. Vicente (José Ramón Soroiz), a 76-year-old gay man, basks under the sun in Maspalomas, soaking up freedom, sex, desire, friendship—everything he was denied or kept hidden for decades. The beach becomes a space of affirmation, of body, and of belonging.
Then comes the rupture: an unexpected stroke forces him back north to San Sebastián, back into a life he thought he had left behind. He is moved into a nursing home, estranged from parts of his past—his daughter, the family he left, the identity he had hoped was irrevocably his. Once inside the home, confrontations begin: with other residents, caretakers, the institutional expectation that an older person, especially a gay older person, simply conforms—to fade into silence, to hide again.
This forced “return to the closet” is the film’s central metaphor, and its power lies partly in how concrete it becomes: small humiliations, the erasure of desire. It is not simply a story of physical illness, but of a society in which being seen—and being sexual—at an advanced age is still controversial.
The filmmakers do not shy away from intimacy. The opening scenes of sex, of joy, are explicit not to shock but to insist: pleasure does not age out. The contrast between the sun-drenched Maspalomas and the clinical, muted tones of the care home underscores the thematic tension between visibility and invisibility; between living boldly and being unseen.
Beyond the individual, the film is a social indictment. It holds up a mirror to how we treat older people, particularly LGBTQ+ elders. It insists that legal or cultural progress can be reversible. It warns that even freedoms thought to be entrenched can slip away when institutions, prejudice, or neglect intervene. It also zeroes in on intergenerational relationships: the daughter who perhaps never fully accepted her father’s truth; the fellow room-mate whose prejudices are both overt and subtle. And in those relationships, the film mines both conflict and compassion.
Visually and structurally, Maspalomas is disciplined. The first part pulses with color, movement, texture; the second slows down, becomes more austere, more about what is not said. This shift is exactly what gives the film its emotional heft: the loss is not only physical freedom but also self-expression. The narrative does not collapse under its own weight; it carries its many themes—age, sexuality, memory, regret, the politics of shame—with coherence.
Performances anchor all of this, especially José Ramón Soroiz as Vicente. His portrayal is heartbreaking and courageous; he does not play an icon, but a man whose dignity has been won at a cost, and whose desires and fears remain vivid. Every glimmer of desire, every suppressed confession, every moment of silence is weighted with the life behind it—a performance so compelling that it earned Soroiz the Silver Shell for Best Leading Performance at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
By Constant Carbonelle
Edited by Birgit Beumers
Copyright FIPRESCI