- Year: 1968
- Country: Cuba
- Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
- Starring: Sergio Corrieri, Daisy Granados
The 3rd and final planned film by Gutiérrez Alea I was to watch this month is by far the best. Taking place in 1961 after the Bay of Pigs invasion, a man in his late thirties wanders around Havana rather aimlessly, trying to find meaning in his life and how it relates to the newly liberated Cuba and trying to find comfort in the arms of strangers, never fully approving of those he meets. Through his own narration we are led into the mind of a man who understands what is happening around him but is unable to be the change he wants to see in life; the change he expects to see from his fellow people. His hypocrisy through inaction lead his choices. Through intricate voice-over narration and spliced in news footage, we see both an objective and subjective view of the Cuban revolution. A film that calls everything into question that was controversial for its subject matter when it came out – many didn’t know what to make of the film’s “opinion” about the revolution. The film takes visual elements of the French New Wave but creates its own identity altogether. Gutiérrez Alea in 1974 won the award of the National Society of Film Critics in New York but was denied entry to the U.S. to accept the award.
Cinema Del Peppel 