Recent Satire and Criticism in Cuban Film

Artistic expression often provides a narrow window of criticism to which some governments of the left and the right may object. Cuba's film institute (ICAIC) has been at the vanguard of creating films that overtly herald the accomplishments of the socialist revolution as well as satirize some of its failings. The release of Fresas y Chocolate in 1993 by the late Tomás Guiterrez Alea (known as the 'Titan') set the stage in recent years for some humorous yet salient criticisms of the Cuban government during the so-called "Special Period in a Time of Peace." That work was followed by the comedy, Guantanamera, a spoof that mocks the bloated bureaucracy and inability to make decisions a the local level (while transporting the cadaver of a Cuban-American woman who returns to her beloved Guantánamo Province, only to die in the early moments of the movie, and whose body must be transported across provincial lines to be sent back home).

In recent years, two new releases have been added to this period of self-reflection: one is of a more serious nature (Suite Habana, with official ICAIC approval) while the other is a roaring comedy that has circulated clandestinely throughout the island, North America, and Europe (Monte Rouge). Unfortunately, neither one is yet available with English subtitles. Not to worry: Suite Habana has no dialogue and Monte Rouge is short enough (15 minutes) to allow for brief, simultaneous translation.

Suite Habana is shot in a day-in-the-life genre of about twelve individuals and households in the Cuban capital. The camera moves easily among these individuals and captures only incidental or ambient dialogue; there is no script in the movie. An array of seemingly benign and 'average' citizens are the focus of the film: a rail yard mechanic who plays his saxophone in his church in the evening; an elderly pensioner who sells peanuts while her husband –seemingly suffering from dementia—sits aimlessly in front of the TV watching state news and broadcasts; a hospital worker who toils in the laundry by day and performs as a drag queen by night; a young male carpenter who also dances brilliantly with the national ballet company; a family consisting of a young boy with Down's syndrome who is being raised by his widowed father and grandmother; and others.

The simplicity of this film is its dominant allure. The producer underscores the common bonds of individuals, both in Cuba and abroad, who in similar fashion move through the daily drudgery of work only to cherish those few precious moments at home with family and friends. The political messages are subtle but evident. A physician who spends his daytime inspecting the food quality at an air-catering enterprise near the international airport moonlights as a clown at private parties (a private-sector trade since outlawed). One man awakes on his last day on the island as he prepares to head into exile: he savors his last moments in his home, garden, and farewell with his family. The banal and daily become extraordinary and exotic.

At the movie's end, the camera freezes on the individuals we have watched living in Havana and subtexts appear below their images. Each caption identifies their profession (which we gather during the previous hours) and states their 'dreams.' This is a simple yet powerful technique even though the audience does not know whether the producer invented these dreams or whether they are truly the protagonists' aspirations (as a documentary would lead us to believe).

These dreams range from the universal (wishing prosperity for one's child) to the idiosyncratic (the beleaguered elderly too tired trying to make ends' and simply has no dreams). Pérez's ability to follow these habaneros unobtrusively results in a sort of contemporary magical-realism we might expect to find in a book by Isabel Allende or Gabriel García Márquez.

The viewer is treated to a relatively clean Havana, the life of a city beyond the tourist enclaves and, for the most part, the city's celebrated public spaces and promenades. In contrast to the...