Tropic Sprockets / Soy Cuba / I Am Cuba

By Ian Brockway

 

In 1964, Russia sought to expand Socialism’s cause through cinema, emboldened by Castro’s revolution. The result was Mikhail Kalatozov’s feature “I am Cuba.” Daring in technique, the film both vexes and thrills. It was in part discovered by Martin Scorsese who saw it at a private screening.

At the time of its original release, it was reported to be poorly received. Cuba thought it stereotypical, while the USSR thought it bourgeois; it did not go far enough in its revolutionary concerns. The film is a series of vignettes highlighting a struggling Cuban nation, held captive by Western ideals.

In one, a young girl (Luz-Maria Colazo) is taken advantage of at a night club. In another, an old cane farmer Pedro (Jose Gallardo) discovers that his farm has been sold out from under him. Then an idealistic student Enrique (Raul Garcia) wants to assassinate a fascist police chief.

The last one features Mariano (Salvador Wood) a peaceful man who answers the call to combat, after his son is killed.

Right from the start, the film echoes “King Kong” (1933). Everything is in extreme close-up. The palms are huge and the mountains monstrous. The tourists seem imbued with some virus, selfish, carnal and demonic. While this is a propaganda film from the Cuban Missile Crisis era, it could just as well be segments from “The Twilight Zone”

All is eerie and mysterious.

We are put instantly in the thick of a decadent party where smoking tourists leer and salivate over young Cuban women. They are robotic in their greed. Money and power are the only concern. The audience is a roving camera witnessing selfish scene after selfish scene and one rightly becomes appalled.

The people in this film are positioned as heroes on a grand stage, and although the film is thematically simplistic and manipulative, it highlights its cause very well.

It is moving to see a student stand up in the midst of bullets, under the gaze of a callous policeman, just as it is to see a farmer attempt A Last Stand. The US Navy is shown as a shouting arrogant white blob of arms and legs intent on one objective: the attainment of fleshly pleasure at all cost.

The cinematography is dizzying, yet virtuosic. Skyscrapers speed upward, then tilt and tumble. At times the camera rushes and turns, only to switch direction seemingly without warning. Those sensitive to motion or depth might do well to take caution.

At nearly 2 1/2 hours in length, “I Am Cuba“ is a film to live through and experience in full. Though at times challenging and even arduous in its pace and deliberation, this is an epic adventure as shown through a political lens and you won’t soon forget its percussive scenes.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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