Una Noche - Eine Nacht in Havanna

It is an American movie about Cubans. It seemed to me, the director did a research for years in La Havana just to confirm and show what she had in her mind previously. The movie lacks of Cuban heart. At times, she depicts La Havana as if it was a slum in India, Brazil or Haiti. A place full of poor people, without any support from any State. Where the State is just an oppressive machine. Cuba is full of contrasts, and each one who goes there, or lives theres, or was born there, looks into different aspects. The director, was not able or did not want to move her point of view, into something less conventional.

It is a country that lies only 90 miles outside of U.S. borders but decades of political discord have kept the story of Cuba from American eyes. 'Una Noche' the feature film debut of British director Lucy Mulloy, tells the story of three brave, and daring teens who venture to cross the treacherous ocean and prevail against a fate of poverty and injustice.

The cinematography is stirring and captivating. The performances are natural and engaging. Mulloy is a brilliant director who presents a seamless motion picture, tenderly and candidly.

The harsh and bleak trappings of scarcity as well as the joy of family and friends play as the background to a cleverly written love triangle. Adrenaline fuels the urgency of the characters' desperation.

As a viewer you feel as though your passport has been stamped. You've received an all expense paid trip to the pain and the paradise of the communist island nation.

It is a film like no other. You hold your breath and pray for the shore line to be merciful --- and edge closer.

I had the privilege to watch this film at Berlinale 2012, and afterward to hear a Q and A with some of the actors, as well as one of the cinematographers and the director.

I really enjoyed this film. I found the story gripping, the actors convincing (especially considering they were previously untrained)and the overall film kept me hooked. In particular i felt the film showed a great balance between following the story while also managing to include a lot of street shots showing regular people doing regular things. I liked the way this was blended into the story, but didn't detract from it at all. Something else i think deserves a mention is the music and sound engineering. For a low budget film i found it superb. Not only was the music well chosen, and fitting for the scenes changes, but the overall audio presentation was great (this may have been partly due to the theater we were in though).

I'm a Cuban who spent more than two decades living in the island thus I know what authenticity means when it comes to judging what is really Cuban and what is not. This is a very beautiful and quite accurate movie when it comes to the Cuba that I know. I wonder what kind of help Mulloy the director received from people in Cuba because the script couldn't be more Cuban (language expressions, characters, locations and so on). She has managed to give us a very fresh picture of the Cuban reality despite of course the necessary dosage of fiction that the movie carries. I think Mulloy achievement with this production is far from trivial. Other more resourceful and heavy weights in the movie industry like Benicio del Toro have not being able, in my personal opinion, to capture Cuba so powerfully (thinking of "7 days in havana"). Kudos to Mulloy and all the people involved with this production for this wonderful gift to the world, but especially to the Cubans living abroad who can't stop from missing the island every single day of their lives. Thank you and know that have given this review a 9 because I don't believe in perfection.

"Una noche" looks at the conditions in modern Cuba that have driven many citizens to flee the country. A common debate in the US is whether the conditions in Cuba are due more to the Castro brothers or to the US embargo/blockade*. This movie shows that whatever the case, the conditions there are pretty bad. As with the rest of Latin America, the tourists stay in fancy hotels but the hotel's employees don't get to share the tourists' experiences in the rest of the country. It turned out that the plot took on a real dimension when it premiered in the US: Javier Nuñez Florián and Anailín de la Rúa de la Torre both disappeared, reportedly defecting to the US. These things will probably continue as long as the embargo/blockade exists. Anyway, it's a really good movie.

*The US calls it an embargo, Cuba calls it a blockade.