Posted on 07/31/2003 3:32:55 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA (Reuters) - The characters eat black beans and rice in silence, bathe with buckets and cycle miles to work against a backdrop of the crumbling beauty of their city.
A 79-year-old woman sells peanuts to make ends meet. A hospital employee becomes a transvestite cabaret dancer by night, a doctor doubles as a clown after work and a railway repairman plays the sax in an Adventist chapel.
"Suite Habana" documents a day in the life of a dozen Cubans who struggle with the harsher side of life in revolutionary Cuba. The adults don't smile or utter a single word throughout the 80-minute film.
The melancholy documentary directed by Cuban filmmaker Fernando Perez -- a rapid sequence of images, sounds and music -- is the talk of the town this summer in Havana.
The film has packed the city's Charles Chaplin theater for five weeks, drawing tears and standing ovations from audiences stunned by the frank portrayal of their day-to-day lives.
"It shows the reality of my country that is never seen on television. It's a very raw look at difficulties that exist," said university lecturer Oscar Gomez as he left the theater.
Some Cubans were surprised President Fidel Castro's government allowed exhibition of a film that focuses on the daily grind of life under tropical socialism.
While criticism of the island's one-party political system is not permitted, Cuba has tolerated films that satirize bureaucracy such as "Guantanamera," "Alice in Wonder Village" and "Death of a Bureaucrat." "Strawberry and Chocolate," which criticizes discrimination against gays, was in 1995 the first Cuban film to receive an Oscar nomination for best foreign film.
The public debate over "Suite Habana" was no less surprising given the country's media are controlled by the state.
Ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma praised it as "one of the most important films in the history of Cuban cinema."
The workers weekly Trabajadores said Perez' images "speak of the daily feat of existence, of how one can live in poverty without losing dignity or renouncing one's dreams."
The official view is that the film accurately portrays the stoicism with which "habaneros" put up with social hardships that the government blames on four decades of "economic blockade" by its archenemy the United States.
FEW SMILES, REAL LIVES
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."
The only character who smiles in the film and appears to live a carefree normal life is Francisquito, a 10-year-old boy with Down Syndrome.
The only appetizing food shown in "Suite Habana" is in meals made with hygienic care by an airline catering firm for passengers on planes that few Cubans get to travel on.
Jorge Luis, 42, cries with his family in a searing airport scene as he departs his homeland and boards a charter flight for a new life in Miami, where most Cuban exiles live.
"This film touches us so deeply because it represents Cuban reality, the love between Cubans and the constant drama of separation," said Carlos, a museum employee. "It is difficult to dream in Cuba, but nobody can take dreaming away. The message of the film is that one should never give up one's dream."
The director stressed he had total freedom to make "Suite Habana" and has not had a single complaint from the government.
"Eighty percent of Havana lives like this. Many bathe with a bucket, with no running water. I did it for eight years," said Perez, son of a postman who dreamed of being an astrologer.
The filmmaker earns 400 pesos a month, equal to $15, from the state cinema agency and got a bonus in dollars during filming with Spanish producing company Wanda that funded the production and holds the international rights.
"Suite Habana" will be shown abroad first in Spain, at the San Sebastian film festival in September, and then in France, Austria and Switzerland.
"It is not a film of smiles. The characters are real people who act out their lives that are full of difficulties, but they are characters that dream," Perez said.
The documentary returns again and again to a statue of John Lennon sitting on a Havana park bench honoring the Beatle who wrote "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
During a tropical downpour, the camera focuses on Lennon's soaking glasses. "He seemed to be crying," one film-goer said.
The film ends listing each character's dream. The peanut lady, Amanda, says she has no dreams left.
Of course. This probably means he dreams of being able to do it for money. Like a psychic. The stuff is all bunk to me of course, but what a great country we live in where people can get others to pay them for such nonsense. This man will never get to unless Castro dies in his life.
Geographically it is. Architecturally it once was as well. Now it looks like a hurricane came through and no one cleaned up or fixed anything afterwards. The horrors of communism are impossible to really describe. One has to see them in person and hear the stories just to get a tiny feeling. I still can't even imagine what it must be like for those people to live there. I've seen the slums of Mexico City and I would live there in a heartbeat (and it doesn't get much worse than that in the West) before I would live in the average Cuban situation.
Pinochet was a true hero. However, his task was a piece of cake compared to what Franco did. I would put Franco and Pinochet in the top 5 leaders of the 20th century along with Reagan, Thatcher and (begrudgingly)Churchill. I base my criteria on defeating communists, improving economic conditions and improving personal freedoms.
Do you know what happens when unarmed people take on communists?
Do you have any idea of the history of the Castro "revolution"?
They didn't appreciate their tourists, so they lost them. I wonder if the new wave of tourists on "education" visas, who are spending 3,000 bucks for a week in Cuba, know about these attitudes which are taught in Cuban schools through their literature.
Communism is one weird "religion."
I certainly can understand your feelings, I have a 21 year-old son and an 18 year-old daughter who, while not in the military, could find themselves there under the right (or wrong) circumstances. I have a son-in-law who helped to clean up the barracks hit by a scud in Gulf1----He refuses to talk about it now. I would have been absolutely galled to have Clinton start a conflict that would have involved my children.
Having said those things, with Saddam and company gone, I feel that the world will be a safer place for much longer than if we had just let things take their course. The thing to be careful of now is to not leave Iraq as a vacuum waiting to be filled by the likes of AlQueda etc. I can't think of a worse insult to those who have given their lives for our safety than to just pull out now.
My father spent time in Cuba when he was a Naval officer in World War II. He told me that small boys there would offer to shine their shoes or find them "a nice girl". My father wasn't the kind of guy to go into details, but I assume that these women were not only available for conversation. It's also hard to believe that there was no prostitution in Cuba when the American mafia was there in the 50's.
Are you implying that Castro's Cuba isn't? /sarcasm
Not to mention he is still free to trade with the entire rest of the world. Communism doesn't fail miserably because one nation doesn't want to trade with you. It fails miserably because it just doesn't work. And seeing that it just doesn't work (as is plainly evident to anyone who's spent even 1 day in a Communist country), people who would continue to support such a system are simply evil.
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