by Hudson Moura
In Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso (Homem com H, Brazil, 2025), director Esmir Filho crafts a luminous, musically charged portrait of one of Brazil’s most singular icons: Ney Matogrosso. Part biopic, part musical, and part electric cabaret, the film is a tribute to a voice that defied boundaries and a body that embodied rebellion.
Starring Jesuíta Barbosa in a daring performance, the film chronicles key moments in Ney’s life and artistic journey—moving through dates and locations like decisive chapiters: from Vila Militar in 1949 to São Paulo in 2024. These chaptered vignettes do not follow a conventional biographical arc. Rather, they pulse with affect, music, and memory, blurring the line between reenactment and performance.
What truly animates the film is the decision to preserve Ney’s own voice in all musical sequences. Whether in full renditions of classics like As rosas não falam or spontaneous vocal improvisations, the sonic presence of Ney himself anchors the film with authenticity and emotional resonance. The musical interludes are not mere performances—they become narrative motors, deepening our understanding of the character and the era.
Barbosa’s physical performance is nothing short of a revelation. His body becomes a canvas, a site of exuberance, transformation, and refusal. At times, the acting borders on mannered excess, but the effect serves to emphasize the theatricality that Ney himself embraced throughout his career. His androgyny, sensuality, and defiance against gender norms are not tamed here—they are celebrated in their raw, performative glory.
Among the film’s most affecting moments is the formation of Secos & Molhados and their subversive use of poetry—such as Vinicius de Moraes’ Rosa de Hiroshima—as a vehicle for political critique under Brazil’s military dictatorship. The film cleverly aligns its musical aesthetic with acts of resistance, making it a sonic archive of queer, artistic, and cultural transgression.
Yet Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso is not without limitations. At 2h10, it feels too short to do justice to Ney’s vast and complex discography. There is little here that seasoned fans don’t already know. Rather than revealing new dimensions, the film reaffirms what is already well documented. Still, for international Netflix audiences encountering Ney Matogrosso for the first time—dubbed and subtitled in multiple languages—the film may serve as a powerful introduction.
Esmir Filho’s direction is bold, visually playful, and unapologetically sensual. The mise-en-scène elevates each musical number into a theatrical spectacle that both honors Ney’s aesthetic and moves the story forward. Sequences like Pecado Rasgado or Homem com H erupt with color, eroticism, and visual ingenuity, marking some of the most creatively staged musical scenes in recent memory.
Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso may not revolutionize the music biopic genre, but it doesn’t try to. It dances to its own rhythm: vibrant, intimate, theatrical, and defiantly queer. A poetic celebration of an artist who sang, moved, and lived beyond the margins. 
(4.5/5)