I Am Cuba (1964)

In talking about Cuba, people often forget about how things were under Fulgencio Batista. The Cuban-Soviet co-production "I Am Cuba" shows how things were. Throughout four vignettes, we see a Havana prostitute struggling to make ends meet, a humble farmer whose livelihood is destroyed by landowners, students fighting against the repressive police, and finally, people joining up with the revolutionary army.

The whole thing is really socialist realism: the heroic peasants rising up against the oppressive bourgeoisie and getting martyred. But, we have to admit that what "I Am Cuba" portrays is accurate. I don't know for sure whether or not things got much better after the revolution, but most Cubans certainly prefer things as they are today over how things were under Batista. Either way, the movie can also be interpreted through its camera work, showing Cuba's landscape and employing some interesting dollies.

Yes, it's propaganda, but as far as I know, conditions have improved in Cuba ever since they abolished the ladyfinger system and prosecuted Batista's thugs. This movie reminds of things in the same way that "Schindler's List" does.

Fmovies: For the movie made over 40 years ago, Soy Cuba/I Am Cuba/Ya Kuba, is an innovative and very beautiful. I won't be original to mention at least two long scenes in the film that are absolutely brilliant and can be enjoyed on their own over and over again. Besides, these scenes don't have triple narration, just the music that makes them even more impressive. Speaking of the languages presentation, the DVD leaves a lot to be desired. The film is presented with English subtitles, spoken English and Spanish, and Russian voice over which is very annoying. Even though Russian is my native tongue, I looked for the option to turn off the narration but unsuccessfully. With all these voices and subtitles that won't go, you are distracted from the visual beauty of the film which is its best value. I suggest, you go on YouTube, find the rooftop scene and the funeral procession, and watch them in awe, be amazed and fascinated. That's basically all I have to say about Soy Cuba, the propaganda film that was made in 1964 during the victorious days of Fidel Castro Revolution and high hopes for new happy life for the hard working citizens of the Caribbean Paradise Island. Ironically, the film "I Am Cuba", as anti-American propaganda as they ever come, made as a Cuban-Soviet co-production, was not widely released in either pro-Communist country and was almost forgotten until it was restored and presented in the USA in the middle of the 90s by two celebrated American Film Directors, Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola.

Of course, I am impressed by its brilliant cinematography, and who would not? I am not going to describe the beautiful insanity of Sergey Urusevskij's camera in the opening scene of the film or its free soar in the funeral procession later into the picture. It's been done hundreds of times already. If you need an explanation on how these impossible camera movements were achieved, go to Soy Cuba Wikipedia page - they have a thorough and detailed description of the shooting process and how it was done. But let me tell you something. If you really want to see a great Soviet film made by the same Director-Cinematographer team, the wonderful, engaging, fascinating, ahead of its time yet truthfully depicting the tragic events of the history FILM, with the shots that are included in the text books, with the poignant touching story, with the real characters that you never forget, watch Mikhail Kalatozov's B/W film "Cranes are flying" which he and his genius cinematographer Sergei Urusevskij made in 1957. Cranes Are Flying has never become outdated and never will. It will stay unforgettable and compelling as well as cinematographically perfect as long as the Art of Cinema lives. Cranes are Flying is timeless. Soy Cuba is a product of certain time period and its politics. It is not even the problem that the film is a shameless propaganda. The propaganda can be powerful and artistic. Watch for example ten minutes long animated film of Jan Svankmajer "The End of Stalinism in Bohemia". One of the reviewers on this site is asking "How did they dare to make such a film in 1963?" I guess the answer is that by 1963 the short period in the history of the USSR which is known as "thaw" or "ottepel'" that began after Stalin's death in 1953, was over. The 60s represented the return to the Stalinism aesthetics even if officially it had never been admitted. It would take another quarter of the century until the truth about some events and politics was finally to

The four segments that give us an impression of Cuba around 1960 are all very fine. I' wouldn't call this any more propagandistic than any Michael Bay Movie, far less even. It really captures the soul of Cuba that was exploited by the USA at the time and took matters back in their own hand.

I've been to Cuba last year and if the USA didn't boycott the country the Latin communism could work. But back to the movie. The cinematography is as it has been said so many times one of the best efforts ever, but it is not the only quality because the four stories are very nice and have influenced Hollywood filmmakers more than any American will like to admit.

I Am Cuba fmovies. This is my favorite piece of propoganda filmmaking -- and I'm remembering Reifenstahl when I write that -- but I think it's better than that kind of genre comparison implies. The film takes a Marxist look at the state of Cuba in 1964; it's episodic, and while the ideas expressed are nothing new, the film presents them so cinematically and with such overt fervor that it transcends its numbskull earnestness. There's nothing naive about it: this isn't the work of a starry-eyed naif, but rather a calculated piece of agitprop in which the Americans chew gum loudly and run their hands up the skirts of the innocent Cuban girls, and the blame for Cuba's woes is laid squarely on Batista's shoulders. But it believes itself, and the film, when it connects, is as powerful as anything you've ever seen. 10/10

Is this the best film ever made? For me today in its afterglow it is.

I'm so fickle. I think if all else were equal, I'll always take embodied, real cinema that is coherently integrated. The way of telling the story is ideally complex and folded, using tricks to make the story matter. But if the storytelling is less spectacular, as long as the thing engages, that's what matters. If it changes me, its art and important, regardless of whether I can tell a good story about the storytelling.

That's the way I prefer. But sometimes the storytelling is so spectacular, so engaging in itself, that it doesn't matter what the story is. These are rare, because after all, you need the touch to change your life. So a filmmaker as unsophisticated and unattractive as, say Elia Kazan, can modify my existence when partnered with Williams and Brando.

And this story... what is conveyed here is mostly lies. Or rather it is a target story that is transparently bankrupt. Its based on an embodied reality of sorts. But its a twisted vision. The racism is palpable. The superiority of the European eye and mind are overwhelming. The simple notion of good and evil is less nuanced than in Star Wars or its predecendent westerns, and is intolerable. (This may be simply because history advises that both the Soviet and Cuban experiments were more brutal than what they replaced.)

But what cinema! What life! Just inhabiting this world has adjusted my imagination and dreams. The focus is usually on the extraordinary flying camera, because its so obvious, striking. It is, and if it were just that, I would still get you out of bed and across town to see this. But the flying eye is integrated with an architectural expression that is far deeper. The actors and camera move through buildings, fire, smoke, cane, trees, exploding dirt. This is as amazing the first time, just in wondering how they did it. Knowing the technology used, it seems impossible, and that knowledge actually distracts. You have to see this several times to just get past the wonder at the talking dog.

Then you can get into the visual poetry of thing. It isn't about people at all. They matter not at all except as fodder for ennobling posters. What matters is the structure of the forces that surround and channel them here and there like turbulent banks. This is a project centered on those forces, incarnated as spatial forces. Where in another project you wonder how a dog can be so dramatic, here you wonder how the director was able to control fire and smoke to be so perfectly compliant. Its not embodied in the story, which is daft, but in the real world that contains it.

This is absolutely in the spirit of Tarkovsky, and is the only film I know that betters him visually. Its less human, but oh so spatial. You must, must see it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

That I've ever seen, and I watch a lot of movies. The story is propaganda, to be sure, and some of the acting is horrible, but WOW! I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Shot after stunning shot....I don't know how they did it, but I didn't mind all the rhetoric because I kept thinking, "Look, that's so beautiful" and "Wow, how did they do that?" I do recommend it also as a historical document of a time most people don't remember....I was born the year it was made and remember "the Communist Threat" but I think a lot of people younger than myself may not remember.

Not to mention that yes, some of the music was also amazing. A must see for any serious film buff.