Disco, Ibiza, Locomia 2024 Movie Review
In 2022, Movistar+ presented on its platform the documentary series Locomía , directed by Jerez-born Jorge Laplace, which we found to be a very interesting approach to a musical, but above all sociological, phenomenon that from the late 1980s to almost the mid-1990s was certainly surprising, the emergence of the musical group of that name, Locomía, although it can also be written Loco Mía, an “electro-pop” group that started from a double circumstance: impossible outfits, somewhere between a circus clown and a Picasso-like bullfighter, with gigantic shoulder pads, clothing designed by Xavi Font, the group’s ideologist; and the commercial vision of the music producer José Luis Gil (nothing to do with his namesake, the actor and dubbing actor, famous as Mr. Cuesta from Aquí no hay quien viva ), who knew how to see the enormous potential of those boys with ambiguous androgynous aesthetics.
In the review of that documentary, which was certainly very good (the documentary, not the review…), we said (and sorry for the self-quote, but it’s fitting): “…in a story that, certainly, could be the plot of a very attractive fiction series, because there are more than enough elements for it.” Well, it seems that we were not the only ones who thought so, because here we have a feature-length fiction film in which the essential events, the creation, the rise and fall of the group are dramatized.
The film begins with a somewhat peculiar caption, narrated by a girl, who says, more or less, that this is the story of Locomía, although some names and also some circumstances have been changed, but that in essence that is the story. From there, we meet Xavi Font, a young Catalan, openly gay, who emigrated to Ibiza in the eighties in search of the libertine fame of the island. There, with a group of like-minded people, mostly boys, but also a girl, Lurdes Iríbar, they try to survive as best they can by acting as hairdressers, designers of clothes and accessories that they sell on the street, and even, in the last stage, as go-go dancers in nightclubs. There, the outlandish outfits of Xavi, Lurdes et alii attract the attention of producer José Luis Gil, who invites them to what he foresees may be an exciting adventure, forming a group, which they will name Locomía, as the boys already call themselves, which will revolutionize the Spanish and Latin American music scene in the following years…
We have a good opinion of the Catalan director Kike Maíllo; two of his previous feature films, Eva (2011) and Toro (2016), on very diverse subjects, seemed very interesting and innovative to us. However, this Disco, Ibiza, LocomíaIt has a custom look that knocks you off your feet. Because the history of the ephemeral musical group was a bonbon that could not, should not be wasted, from the peculiarity of its origins, several evanescent ephebes who sang like crickets but who made their extravagant wardrobe and their gigantic fans their hallmarks, until its end, when the two leaders, Xavi Font and José Luis Gil, faced each other in a merciless struggle that ended up finishing off the name Locomía, thus putting an end to the goose that laid the golden eggs.
But what was strength and power in the documentary, especially in the confrontation between Font and Gil (separately, each one in the interview they gave, cleverly edited), and which gave an idea of to what extent the resentment of the first of them, but also the calculation and tactics of the second, destroyed a truly singular phenomenon, that strength and power, I say/said (oh, Umbral, Umbral…), is not even close to being in this film which, without being despicable, is clearly inferior to the documentary and, of course, is less than worthy of the story, told here around a (I don’t know if supposed) prejudicial meeting of the parties with a mediator (wonderful Eva Llorach, as always), who tries to reach an agreement before going to court, told from that perspective, with the testimonies (and their corresponding dramatizations) of the actors and actresses who play the real characters in the story.
The story, from that perspective, is well told, but it lacks soul: we never see the dominance that Xavi Font had over the group, the true alpha male of Locomía, being that character certainly fascinating, a guy not too cultured (or not at all…), but with a notable artistic ability to design outlandish costumes and, above all, with leadership skills like a captain, with which he knew how to manipulate his acolytes, who evidently adored him. None of that (which we learn about first hand from the documentary) appears here, losing along the way one of the fundamental assets of the story of Locomía. Maíllo films correctly, as we say, but it seems to us that he also films with reluctance, as if what he tells us was of no concern to him, putting his work and little else into it. It is occasionally adorned with visual effects from that period, the eighties, with colourful strokes theoretically drawn on the characters (today, of course, done using CGI, by computer), which were used for the first time in Spain, at that time, by Pilar Miró at a New Year’s Eve gala.
There are some funny scenes, like the one about the visit of the parents of one of the boys, the most vulnerable of them all, Manolo, in which the members of the band and their friends in Ibiza have to try to make it seem that their refuge on the island, the closest thing to a pansexual commune, is a “normal” house, while from time to time some members appear, not warned of the visit of those parents who believed that their son was the hairdresser of the kings… But, in general, the film, which is enjoyable to watch, always gives the impression that the characters are more cardboard than human.
It’s a shame, because the story of Locomía could make a good, even a very good fictional film based on the historical basis of the ephemeral life of this musical group, especially regarding the confrontation between those two Atlanteans who, figuratively, were Xavi Font and José Luis Gil, the first with his persuasive arts with his colleagues, whom he manipulated at will, the second with all the artillery of the recording industry and a legion of lawyers who agreed on leonine contracts in his name. Both came out very damaged from this duel; From that atrocious stabbing that destroyed what could have been a franchise that would last until today (and beyond, as Buzz Lightyear would say…) the only thing left was the memory of a group of young people who, to a large extent, were a natural, evolved continuation of the Movida Madrileña, turning Ibiza into its nerve centre and transforming the hooligan tone, drug-addled and rather “underground” appearance of the Madrid boys into the extravagant aesthetics and exaltation of the calculated ambiguity of the Ibizans.
Jaime Lorente, in the role of Xavi Font, seems to us to be a mistake: Lorente is not a versatile actor who, however, since his rise to fame in La casa de papel , has been assigned several characters that probably surpass him: the legendary Ruy Díaz de Vivar in the miniseries El Cid , Ángel Cristo in the miniseries Cristo y Rey , and now this Xavi Font, leader of Locomía, a character that we do not fully believe in, despite his efforts, which are recognized, such as the fake feather that he brings to light, but which is hardly credible. Blanca Suárez is better as Lurdes Iríbar, designer and initial member of the group, although in a secondary role, as a chorister. But the best of all seems to us to be Alberto Ammann, who, appropriately characterized, convincingly plays José Luis Gil, a systematic, pragmatic and well-positioned guy in the recording industry, who found in Locomía the philosopher’s stone to transform lead (some guys who sang out of tune like clucking hens) into gold (a group that was the musical event of its time).
