I am Cuba

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov

25 September 2023

See

Her: Soy Cuba, 1964 directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, filmed by the great Sergey Urusevskej. Four unrelated stories depicting Cuba on the verge of resolution in 1959. Despite its politised and openly anti-American narrative, it’s a cinematographic masterpiece which has been acclaimed by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Cappola in the nineties. Due to their efforts, copies of the film were restored and the movie was included in the curriculums of the world’s best film schools.

Him: Vignettes of life in Cuba on the cusp of Fidel Castro’s revolution. One shows a farmer forced off his plot. In the second women working as escorts to American high rollers, their poverty and affluence is contrasted when one man insists on going back to her shack. This is no Nights of Calabria, here Western capitalist pigs use and abuse their privilege and power. Another plotline shows American sailors chasing a local girl who isn’t up for it and is saved by a local student who stands up to them. He joins the revolution and dies at the hands of Batista’s police state on the streets of Havana. Finally there’s the ideological clash of a guerilla and a farmer. 

Think

Her: When I watched Soy Cuba for the first time in VGIK I could not believe it could be filmed with the cameras and equipment available at that time. Even now I can’t explain how it was done. The cinematography is by far the biggest merit of this film. Despite it being technically complex, the best way I can describe it is poetic. It’s visual language is unparalleled. I also think it’s worth keeping in mind the era it was made and of course, the country. What we understand and know now. Was most likely, most definitely unknown back then. My knowledge of the Cuban revolution is quite limited but I believe that the divide between the rich and the rest of the population is demonstrated quite accurately. I also do not disbelieve that Americans would have contributed to that divide, just like Russian immigrants do in Thailand and Australians in Indonesia. After all, it’s not that different in Dirty Dancing 2 Havana Nights, so maybe it’s not the Cold War and Soviet propaganda.

Him: Is this what America really looks like to Russia and Cuba? Or is this propaganda? Capital does crush labor. Rich guys do exploit pretty poor young things, treating them like love objects not people. Students do take to the streets if they want change. Some would rather peace at any price, until everything is taken from them before they pick up a brick or gun. 

Feel

Her: I feel that this is a masterpiece. After watching it for the first time, I have a always remembered the impression it made on me, certain shots, camera angles, the fluidity of the camera, it’s incredible, unexplainable lightness. From a production point of view, there are so many things  Icannot explain which gives me an almost religion feeling. And makes me want to go to Cuba. The personification of the island is head through voice over which may sound pathetic. But I disagree with that, the issue is that cinema language has become very limited and so we’re sometimes not open to feeling what the authors were trying to put into it. 

Him: To my mind the book end of the first farmer and the last was a compelling framing device. The old man had an abundance of sugar cane, but then the land lord came and wanted to confiscate the wealth cause those at the top just want to take, and gorge themselves on the rum that it’ll become. The farmer would rather see it burn. That’s the attitude you have to have because then Capital will be afraid of Labour again, and maybe share a bit more rather than lose it all. In the West we claim to balance it with industrial relations laws, but why does it feel like it’s getting harder to make a living let alone live a good life. Perhaps looking at our system from an opposing one isn’t so propagandistic after all.