Cuban Film Series 3/4 - 4/8

Cuban Film Series 2010 7:30 PM at St. Anthony Main Theaters on Historic Main Street by the River Co-Sponsored by the Resource Center of the Americas
Mar. 4 thru Apr. 8
Tickets $6.00 or a pass for for 5 - purchase at the door

March 4th

Clandestinos -by Fernando Perez

Satisfying as both a political thriller and a love story, this feature film by Fernando Perez is so naturally realized that it avoids being didactic even as it commemorates events of the Cuban revolution. Anti-Batista activists move from one safe house to another, trying to elude a relentless police commissioner. Their leader (Luis Alberto Garcia), hardened by prison and torture, is suspicious of nearly everyone but gradually falls for his newest recruit, a headstrong idealist (Isabel Santos of EL Benny). The climactic rooftop chase is well choreographed and edited, and Edesio Alejandro’s surging score recalls early Isaac Hayes. Also know as Living Dangerously. In Spanish with subtitles. 103 min.

*Round table Panel discussion of film after screening at Pracna on Main (next to theater) lead by U of M political Science professor August Nimtz who is currently researching material for a documentary film on the subject of the Civilian front of the Revolution in the cities of Cuba.

March 11th

El Benny

Music and dancing were like drugs in Cuba in the 1950s and Benny More was the most intoxicating entertainer of that time, according to Jorge Luis Sanchez’ colorfully entertaining new biopic “El Benny.” Screened in competition at the Locarno International Film Festival following its world premiere in Havana on July 22, the film depicts More as a man of the people whose swinging mambo-infected jazz made him a household name in Latin America. With a soundtrack featuring top-line Cuban performers, the film is cut from the same cloth as hit musical biographies “Ray” and “Walk the Line” and, given the chance, it should make a substantial claim on that audience. Wear your dancing shoes!

*Round table panel discussion lead by Gloria Rivera, a professional Cuban singer and musician and Rene Thompson, Cuban dancer and musician well recognized in the Americas for their talents and knowledge of Cuban Music history.

March 18th

The Last Supper by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

The Last Supper is set on a sugar plantation in late 18th Century Cuba during the Easter Holy Week. The story is based on a real event from 18th-century Cuba. In the first part, we glimpse the world of the plantation owned by a Count (Nelson Villagra), complete with his employees, overseers and African slaves (Luis Alberto Garcia, Jose Antonio Rodriguez, Mario Balmaseda, Idelfonso Tamayo, and Julio Hernandez, Samuel Claxton).

In the extraordinary middle section, the Count picks 12 slaves at random to share a feast with him in honor of the Last Supper, with himself as the benevolent Christ-figure, in order to teach the slaves a lesson in the humility and grace of our Lord. They don’t quite understand what they’re getting into, but everyone has a good laugh when the master washes and kisses the feet of his slaves. Alea’s adroit handheld camerawork in the fields is traded for an elegant zoom at the dinner table, dollying back for a rectangular composition and then forward again to the center, where the Count is passing himself off as Christ: “This is all for you,” he announces to his guests, but it’s really all for him, a way of alleviating the subjugator’s guilt while reinforcing his superiority. Wine is the great equalizer, as Chaplin and Clair understood, so both castes speak their piece during the meal, oral history modulated into debate – African anecdotes are vividly acted out, Villagra counters with the idea that freedom is not happiness and dozes off after casting as the supper’s Judas the maimed runaway (Samuel Claxton), who refers a tale of decapitated Truth. It’s an audacious undertaking by one of Cuba’s greatest directors, and the gamble pays off handsomely. Books can state facts and offer descriptions, however, this movie provides the opportunity to see deeper than what history books and stories can tell. Alea is probably best known for his extraordinary 1968 film “Memories of Underdevelopment” which provided a jaundiced intellectual’s view of the Cuban Revolution.

March 25th

The Waiting List

Mixing sharp social commentary and comedy, director Juan Carlos Tabio’s (STRAWBERRY & CHOCOLATE) WAITING LIST brings together a cast of characters who possess drastically different personalities, but who find much in common while they wait (and wait, and wait) for a bus to Santiago. As each person enters the terminal, he or she must sign a waiting list for the next bus. Reflecting the unwieldy nature of Cuban socialism, the line grows longer, and the only buses that seem to stop are full or broken down. In contrast, Tabio also effectively portrays the hardy nature of his subjects and by extension, the hopes for a smoother governmental system. As the passengers get to know each other better, romance develops, friendships form, and everyone gets scammed by a man (Jorge Perugorria) who pretends to be blind for a chance at the top of the list. As they suffer together, the group sets about creating a more welcoming bus stop–an undertaking that echoes Cuban governmental calls for grassroots efforts toward community improvement.

*Discussion of the film will be lead by Professor Gary Prevost, St. John’s University Political Science Dept you will lead a discussion on Cuba’s social democracy ad the People’s Power government.

April 1st

Viva Cuba by Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti

In a tale akin to Romeo and Juliet, the friendship between two children is threatened by their parents’ differences. Malu is from an upper-class family and her single mother does not want her to play with Jorgito, as she thinks his background coarse and commonplace. Jorgito’s mother is a poor socialist that is proud of her family’s social standing. She places similar restriction on her son. What neither woman recognizes is the immense strength of the bond between Malu and Jorgito. When the children learn that Malu’s mother is planning to leave Cuba, they decide to travel to the other side of the island to find Malu’s father and persuade him against signing the forms that would allow it. Juan Carlos Cremata’s two young stars are captivating, real naturals the camera can’t resist. You’ll remember them and their final moments on screen and worry about them long after you’ve left the theater. Viva Cuba won 34 national and international awards in all.

April 8th

Suite Havana

Fernando Perez’s masterful 2003 documentary is all the more lyrical for his decision to bypass narration and (for the most part) dialogue. Through a gradual accretion of contemplative shots, Perez interweaves studies of a diverse selection of Havanans, including a railroad worker, a peanut vendor, a ballet dancer, and an architect. A lyrical, meticulously-crafted and unexpectedly melancholy homage to the battered but resilient inhabitants of a battered but resilient city, Perez’s “Suite Habana” fuses fiction and documentary, making its point with poetic evocation. The surprisingly watchable delight strikes universal chords. Shunning the sun ‘n’ salsa cliches of La Isla. Havana’s weathered facades and seafront bear mute witness to the ebb and flow of its people’s lives and the persistence of their dreams. Ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma praised it as “one of the most important films in the history of Cuban cinema.” In his sermon on a recent Sunday, a Catholic priest urged his parishioners to go and see “Suite Habana” for its “eloquent and revealing images of daily life in Cuba today.” 90 min.