‘Censurada Review’: A Queer Love Story Under Franco

Love under Franco’s regime was never going to be simple. For women, for queer people, for anyone who fell outside the rigid expectations of conservative Spanish society, desire itself could become an act of rebellion. Mario Garza’s Censurada understands that immediately. Its premise is exciting and original.  A dyslexic young musician falls in love with another woman while trying to build a life in a society determined to tell her who she should be. The problem is that the film’s ideas are often richer than the script carrying them.

Salome (Nerea Rodríguez) is a gifted pianist who receives an acceptance letter to a music academy in Pamplona, although even reading the letter is difficult because of her dyslexia. Her father doesn’t want her to go, sells her piano, and seems more interested in controlling her future than supporting it. Oh, and her father sells her off to her uncle as a laborer on his farm.   Salome moves in with her relative, accompanied by her younger brother Kiko (Aitor Morales del Rio). Soon after arrival, Kiko is killed in a horse accident, leaving Salome grieving and looking for an outlet. That’s when she grows closer to Miranda (Sena Ortiz), a rebellious young woman working on her uncle’s farm. Miranda is everything Salome isn’t. She’s outspoken, politically aware, resistant to marriage, and openly frustrated by the limitations placed on women. She dreams of leaving for Paris.

The two are kindred spirits because both want freedom, just in different ways. Miranda pushes Salome to enter a music competition. Salome gives Miranda someone who understands the desire to escape. Their friendship slowly becomes romantic, and suddenly the film’s title begins to carry much more weight.

Censurada isn’t just about government censorship. It’s about the ways people censor themselves to survive. Salome and Miranda have to hide their intimacy not only from the state, but from their families and communities. Queerness under dictatorship becomes another layer of surveillance. You don’t just have to worry about being seen by authorities. You have to worry about being seen by everyone. That thematic material is where the film works best.

Unfortunately, Salome is not nearly as developed as Miranda. Miranda has clear wants. She rejects marriage, resents the social order, wants independence, and dreams of Paris. You understand her almost immediately. Salome’s characterization arrives in fragments throughout the film rather than being established early enough for us to fully understand what drives her beyond music. Too often she feels meek when her conflictions should be punchier. The film would have been stronger if we saw more of Salome actively wrestling with ambition, grief, sexuality, disability, and fear instead of simply watching those things happen around her.

At around 80 minutes, Censurada still manages to feel slow in places, partly because there are too many characters competing for attention. The performances are uneven as well, although Rodríguez and Ortiz de Zarate find enough chemistry to make their relationship believable. Visually, the film feels closer to a television drama than a fully cinematic period piece. The daytime photography is clean and serviceable, but the night scenes are frustratingly dark, sometimes to the point where atmosphere becomes obscured.

Still, I have to give Censurada credit for one thing because it understands how exhausting tragedy can become in queer period dramas. Spanish queer cinema in particular has no shortage of doomed lovers, repression, and punishment, so it is refreshing that the film does not simply collapse into another predictable “bury your gays” trope ending.

There is a genuinely compelling film inside Censurada. The themes are there. The historical setting is there. The romance is there. I just wish the screenplay dug deeper. Because a story about queer love surviving dictatorship should feel dangerous, complicated, and urgent and Censurada doesn’t always feel that way. The film definitely understands why that story matters. It’s just that the execution doesn’t always know how to make us feel the full weight of it.