Ultima cena

Admittedly, it's very likely improbable that a slave owner would do anything to treat his slaves as his equals. But apparently, "La ultima cena" ("The Last Supper" in English) is based on true events, although I don't know whether or not they changed anything. The movie portrays a slave owner in 18th century Cuba reenacting the famous final meal of Jesus, having his slaves play the disciples.

Of course, the movie's main purpose is to show slavery's brutality and the racism that was law of the land at the time. Aside from the total cruelty inflicted on black people - namely what the slave owner does at the end - someone talks about how white has to come before black (I can't remember the exact line, but it was something like that). As it was, this continued through the 1950s: even though Fulgencio Batista was dictator, he was mulatto and got excluded from an all-white club near Havana. It was only after the revolution that blacks achieved equal status.

For the most part, I recommend this movie. We may have read volumes about slavery, but you have to see it depicted; of course, probably no film can make us truly understand how horrible it was to experience slavery. This movie does what it can. Tomas Gutierrez Alea has turned out some good work.

Aside from a fairly realistic depiction of how a historical slave revolt could have occurred on a sugar plantation, the best part of this film is the interplay between the slave owner and his slaves. The arrogant slave owner, believing himself to be sacrosanct, tries to teach his slaves to accept their lot in life. Not surprisingly, they can't understand his bizarre efforts, which wind up igniting the revolt.

One part I really liked about this movie was the way it showed the different characters of the slaves. Instead of just lumping them together as one downtrodden mass, their individual personalities are displayed.

In the introductory and the ending part, the play is enthralling, but unfortunately the medium part consists of 'the last meal', during which the landowner tries to explain the bible to the uneducated slaves. They react by making jokes about this metaphysics and by replying with their own cultural convictions.

After half an hour of eating, drinking and preaching, the landowner himself falls into sleep, as is the audience inclined to. This is what Hitchcock denounced as 'shooting the faces of people who are talking'.

To sum up: 2 hours is too much for this content, 1 1/2 would have been better.

When this film was first released in the USA, it got wow reviews and drew critical audiences. It left an indelible mark in my memory -- still vivid almost 25 years later. I found its reality (despite a period set-piece atmosphere and an alien mindset) drew me in. Ask yourself at the end: who is Judas? Who is the Savior? What is the myth? This is one movie you must see, no matter how high or low you might rate it.

Intelligent political drama about a slave owner trying to soothe his conscience by inviting 12 of his slaves to eat with him Easter week, in imitation of the last supper.

The set-up and rebellion ending are a bit obvious and heavy handed, but the long, theatrical middle, where the master and slaves slowly get drunk and reveal themselves, and the complex contradictions of religion and commerce has moments of real brilliance.

What's impressive is that the film's politics are clear, but not simplistic. The slaves are not painted as purely good and pure, nor is the master without his moments of humanity. All are ultimately products of a corrupt system - one that could be taken as a metaphor for modern capitalism and religion, but really are about any power system that forces submission on human beings