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The work of Russian director Mikhail Kalatozov in 1964, this piece of Communist propaganda is a dated political text but an otherwise modern visual treat. I Am Cuba is a composite of four dramatic vignettes that describes the island's popular transformation from US influenced dictatorship to communist outpost. Doused in the poetic rhetoric of revolution, it's hard to watch in a modern context without appreciating some obvious ironies. Visually however this is as vital a movie as it ever was.
The four distinct chapters provide a roadmap of Cuba's journey towards outright revolution. The country's victimisation at the hands of an economically and socially rapacious America is driven home without subtlety. A young girl from the slums is used for sex by a grotesque, hypocritical tourist, while a hardworking farmer loses his sugar cane crop to the monstrous United Fruit Company. Elsewhere, an idealistic student is made a martyr by the police and a peaceful mountain family lose a baby son to bombs from the sky.
"INFLUENTIAL VISUAL STYLE"
I Am Cuba contains some standout visual sequences that are simply amazing examples of film craft and execution - it's hard to believe this is work from the early sixties. Of particular note is a hovering wire shot that passes through a cigar factory room and over the crowded street below as a funeral procession passes. Whether or not your interest is piqued by this film as a political document, you can not fail to be impressed by its influential visual style, which is evident in so much of what we see on screens today.
In Spanish and Russian with English subtitles.
