"Guantanamera" - brief review by David McReynolds

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"Guantanamera"

a mini-review
by David McReynolds

During a visit to Northern California over the Christmas/New Year's
holidays with my brother and his family, we rented a Cuban film --
not "political" and, yet in a way, very political.

"Guantanamera" was released in 1995, runs 104 minutes, in color, and
done by the director of the award-winning "Strawberry and Chocolate."
"Strawberry and Chocolate" is certainly the more important of the two
films, was widely shown in Cuba (including to the Central Committee
of the Communist Party there), dealt with the oppressive climate
artists faced, and took on the issue of homosexuality fairly
directly.

"Guantanamera" is a much more light-hearted film, dealing with
several stories woven together -- two truck drivers headed for Havana
and their wives and girl friends (they seem to have a "permanent girl
friend" in every city in addition to their wives), a funeral director
trying to find out the fastest way of shifting corpses around Cuba
for burial, a famous old Cuban singer who returns to Cuba to briefly
rekindle a romance with a childhood sweetheart, etc. It is a light
comedy.

The film is fine, not great, but good and, with subtitles, no problem
making sense of it. What moves me to review it is that I think Cuba
has gotten so much bad publicity from the conservatives (and some
liberals) and so much "too good" publicity from parts of the left,
that it is charming to "see Cuba on its own terms" -- as Cubans see
it. Including the black market, the incompetence of the bureaucracy,
the problems of food, the easier sexual mores of the tropics
(remember, Cuba is a tropical island, not just a "Communist
tyranny").  This isn't Cuba as some of its defenders in the West
might paint it -- but oh boy, if you think of Cuba as a "Communist
totalitarian dictatorship" this is, like "Strawberry and Chocolate,"
a revelation.

Cinema often tells us more about a culture than we can find
otherwise. The thaw within the late Soviet Union was dramatically
revealed in such wonderful films as "Slave of Love" (recommended to
ANYONE WHO LOVES CINEMA -- forget politics).

So if you are looking for a film to rent, try "Guantanamera."

Fraternally,
David McReynolds

 
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