The Lost City

As an AmeriCuban who remembers her visits to Cuba as a small child, I was very touched to see on screen the Cuba that I knew was not just in my dreams.

What an excellent job in picking places that can make you really think it was filmed in Havana! You can feel as if you are really there! There are those who wonder how Andy Garcia could have portrayed Cuba so realistically when he left the island as a 5 year old child. But it is at those very young tender years that impressions are made that stay throughout ones lives. My early trips to Cuba have remained very vivid in my mind. I understand him so well.

You can feel that he put his all in this movie. Countless Cubans can relate to the story that is told. What a heart-wrenching moment when he leaves Cuba and his only keepsake is taken away from him! How many Cubans must have passed through this same scene?

The music warmed my soul. I would listen to it over and over.

And that last scene! well, I don't want to give it away. You have to see it.

The music is great, of course, it is Cuba. The costumes are beautiful; so are the women and the men. Worth a look though for it's style and feel of the glamor that was Havana, the physical warmth and affection that lives in Cuban families and it's interesting anti-Castro portrayal of events. It even challenges the hero status of Che Guevara.

But Andy Garcia's tale of a wealthy family coming apart like this lovely island during the Cuban revolution suffers from the self-indulgence that so often weakens the work of writer/director/producer combos. Who is going to say, "Andy, enough of those close-ups of you looking longingly at your lost loves? After about an hour and a half, we sure wish someone would! It leaves me wondering why, with all Cuba has gone through, our government continues to punish Cubans with economic sanctions that do no harm to Castro, but keep the Cubans from thriving from their hard hard work and record breaking high literacy rates.

As an American of Cuban parents, I had always heard the political rhetoric about Cuba as I was growing up. All the while I longed to see this beautiful island which my parents sadly left behind. Though Andy Carcia's film was not filmed in Cuba (it was filmed in the Dominican Republic) it gave me a chance to see a "Cuba" I had only heard about. As for the film itself, the conflicts of family, politics and love in the film is beautifully portrayed to reflect what has been a painful truth to a great number of Cubans. I definitely recommend this to all, Cubans and non-Cubans alike. I hope Mr. Garcia gets due recognition for this beautiful body of work. By the way... Is there an accompanying soundtrack album? The music was phenomenal!

I think that for those who do not know what happened in Cuba during the revolution, this movie is a great film to watch (no matter what the critics believe). Not only do we learn how it happened, we also learn about the struggles of the Cuban people. As in a work of art, everything in this movie has meaning or significance. The story is real and is expressed with sentiment... a romantic, but also nostalgic feeling. Also, the movie captured many details of the Cuban culture (including family values). Finally, I'd like to add that to watch a movie about Cuba without the glamorizing of the revolution or any of its leaders is like a breath of fresh air. Andy Garcia is a genius!

Critics all over have trashed this movie on account on its politics, angry at the way García has depicted Che Guevara as the real murderer he was, at the way he has portrayed the profound injustices and oppression of Fidel Castro's regime, at the way it does not conform to the sympathetic view Hollywood has always had about the Cuban Revolution. The movie suffers sometimes from the inexperienced hand of a first-time director, the lack of the epic budget it needed, and the poor acting of Inés Sastre but it is not a bad movie, not at all. It's an extremely entertaining film that uses its modest resources with great care to give us a dignified, sincere, notably balanced and very emotional document of the terrible experience of the Cuban people. Don't believe the extremely biased reviews of The New York Times, The New Yorker, and other media. Go and see it. Music lovers will enjoy a splendid mix of popular and classical Cuban music, and a great original score which will make a nice CD.