Mikhail Kalatozov
Soy Cuba

A boat placidly plows through a watercourse that manages to infiltrate between stilts and weeds. With a muffled black and white, the presentation of the features of the island of Cuba begins. Soy Cuba is a film shot in the early 1960s, passed in a hushed atmosphere multiplied to the square and resurrected by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola a few decades ago. It might have been the U.S. embargo, the revenge for the descent in the Sierra by Che with Castro and Cienfuegos, the Castro regime (I doubt it) or the label of a COMMUNIST film (for sure), and who knows why, in some way to be boycotted, that it remained closed, in a safe of the ancient dungeons of oblivion, a pearl of international cinema.

Beyond the political matrix, as an important critic featured on the back cover of the DVD would have said, it is a godsend for those who love Cuba and cinema. Let's start then from this valid premise to tell this extraordinary work divided into four episodes and mostly acted by non-professional or at least unknown actors to the general public. The opening chapter tells of the rich Cuba, the fictitious one, equipped with luxurious hotels and relatively lavish places where wealthy American tourists indulge in alcohol and paid sex. The sequence that traces the peculiarities de quibus must be mentioned, albeit reluctantly, where the camera seems to follow an invisible channel that penetrates everywhere. Maria, a poor girl living in a part of Cuba hidden from tourists' eyes, unwillingly prostituting herself to gather a few dollars unknown to her fruit merchant boyfriend, who is forced to discover it in the shadow of a crucifix. The close-ups, predominantly crosswise, are extraordinary.

The second chapter narrates the story of Pedro, a poor farmer who, with machete strokes, sweat, and blood, supports two children working for a despicable sugarcane landowner. He lives in a hut hammered by the sun just like dreams hammer the heart of good Pedro. The children help the father in work and dreams, ask for a few cents for a Coca-Cola and are satisfied, with the purpose of sending them away, to make space for a mad delirium generated by the news of dismissal, granted brief in hand by the bloody landowner. The shots, though dramatic, are masterful. Pedro, in the grip of an uncontrollable frenzy, decides to set everything on fire, including his home. Acres of sugarcane as far as the eye can see, filmed from exceptionally angled perspectives, lie slain to death by the fire aided by a deeply suffocating heat.

A group of fairly tipsy American sailors, who chant a wishful incantation, opens the third episode, predominantly centered on student rebellion against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The sailors waste no time harassing a girl who is, however, rescued by a passing student. The spark of mutual interest collides with the clandestine commitment to the fight for power. The student, unable to commit acts of an insurgent matrix, finds himself in a succession of skillfully edited shots, furious water jets, slogans, and signs, where, paraphrasing De Gregori, ...somewhere in the world they say it's okay, with a dead dove in hand... The student is shot dead by the police and the sequence of his funeral is superb. The camera, (and I don't know how it was possible), follows the funeral procession from above, crossing walls, windows, tobacco manufacturers intent on producing Cohiba and continuing to fly in the middle of a street without the slightest broken segment expected from the editing. Strongly doubting the use of special effects and/or digital retouching, I would consider it to be pure mastery.

The last episode, however, tells the revolution according to a very poor farmer, perhaps against the use of violence but persuaded by the unexpected arrival of a hungry fighter who instills in him the usefulness of guerrilla warfare. In this case, the fight takes place on the Sierra Maestra, between the pitfalls of the vegetation and the piercing sun. The scene of the bombing on the hill is absolutely special and this is the main reason for deciding to load the makeshift weapons with the few available ammunition and fight for a bit of freedom.

It's a shame that a film of such substance was ground down for almost four decades. The technique is truly masterful, in some points even better than geniuses like Kubrick, Welles, Murnau. Poetic, communist, exciting work, which I would recommend to those who possess a good cinematic culture. Not for anything else, for God's sake, but you might get bored and dismiss a film that really means a lot with a nod of denial.