Week of November 24, 2005, Issue #527
FILM
Havana holiday
By JOSEF BRAUN
When we first see the titular island and figurative heroine of Mikheil Kalatozishvili’s
1964 film I Am Cuba, she is seen from high above,
nothing but an abundance of trees swaying calmly in the breeze, and everything
appears to be covered with a soft dusting of volcanic ash, rendered ghostly
grey under Kalatozishvili’s infra-red, black and white gaze. The atmosphere
is both peaceful and spooky, as though beneath this serene façade lies
a dormant spirit of wrath. The tranquillity lasts for only a few more moments,
as we shift from gliding through the air to drifting along a river that touches
small villages.
From timeless rural quietude, we are suddenly thrust into a noisy urban Cuba
that places us firmly in the time of Batista’s reign. We hear a clamour
of rock ‘n’ roll, jazz and the raucous voices of wealthy foreign
tourists enjoying the hospitality of a deluxe Havana hotel. Kalatozishvili’s
camera begins high on a rooftop, descends smoothly along a wall, scampers across
tiles and then jumps into a swimming pool rife with bathing beauties. The vision
of decadence is deliberately inviting but ultimately fleeting, for the continuing
juxtapositions reveal two Cubas that not only clash in temperament but also
exist in fundamental ideological opposition.
A Cuban/Soviet co-production largely unseen here until the 1990s, I Am Cuba
is one of our most valuable artifacts of the Cold War, a work of blatant propaganda
that also just happens to be one of the most technically dazzling films in history.
Kalatozishvili, director of The Cranes Are Flying, recreates a Cuba of what
was then a very recent past and depicts it as seething with fury and contempt,
a land where violent uprising is inevitable, where the virtues of proletariat
life and the grotesque extravagance of thoughtless capitalist exploiters is
unmistakeable. Yet for all of the blunt polarities, overbearing glorification
of martyrdom and frequently clumsy characterizations (particularly the foreigners),
there is something deeply persuasive about the film’s quartet of pre-revolutionary
tales, something that feels like the product of a group of true believers.
The most intriguing element of I Am Cuba’s overt political sympathies
is the way in which socialist ideas are woven into diverse aspects of the film’s
content and overall schema. There’s the scene where captive guerrilla
soldiers are repeatedly asked for the whereabouts of Fidel Castro and each answers
“I am Fidel.” There’s the equal weight given to each of the
individual pieces, making us clearly understand this is a story of the people,
not as individuals but as a collective. There is even the astonishing way that
much of Kalatozishvili’s seemingly impossible camerawork is brought to
life: the aforementioned single take that travels down the side of the building
was reportedly performed by having dozens of cameramen passing the camera from
one hand to another. But even more impressive is a later shot that follows a
funeral for a fallen protester along a city street, only to dart up a tall building,
enter a window to find cigar rollers suddenly stopping work to drape a flag
out of the window, then exit a second window and sail over the funeral that
has now transformed into a revolutionary parade. Whether or not you’re
aware of the complexity of the shot, the result is still breathtaking.
An impoverished girl forced into prostitution; a farmer whose land has been
seized by a foreign-owned corporation; a student activist who learns the meaning
of sacrifice for a greater good; and a campesino who takes up arms when he realizes
that no amount of seclusion will keep his family safe: each story is one-sided,
each inherently extolling the glory of the coming Communist regime. From the
perspective of a contemporary North American audience, it may all seem heavy-handed,
an advertisement for an ultimately destructive ideology. But is it any more
heavy-handed than the advertisements for rampant consumerism and bourgeois complacency
that pervade so much of what emerges from Hollywood? In the long view, the power
and significance of I Am Cuba lies far beyond whatever political allegiances
it holds. V
I Am Cuba
Directed by Mikheil Kalatozishvili • Written by Enrique Pineda Barnet
• Starring Luz María Collazo, José Gallardo and Raúl
García • Metro Cinema • Fri-Mon, Nov 25-28 (8:30 pm) •
425-9212