Viva

Ireland director Paddy Breathnach's "VIVA" is yet more proof that the independent foreign film is alive and well. Relative new comer Hector Medina is Jesus, a young Havana hairdresser making ends meet (no pun intended) after his mother passes and his dad left at the age of three. With hairdresser fees low, and a chance to join the troupe of drag performers he styles wigs for, Jesus hits the stage only to be confronted by his past. While Mama (the touching Luis Alberto Garcia) tries to guide him, Jesus' father Angel (the confrontational Jorge Perugorria) slams the breaks on. Director Breathnach, along with writer/actor Mark O'Halloran, have captured the poverty stricken Havana-hood and various film locations perfectly, enabling the audience to understand the community, comprehend the stigmas, feel the tension and believe in complicated love. Featuring English subtitles, a fantastic unknown cast to the US film market (including the terrific Renata Maikel Machin Blanco), and an outstanding sound track, "VIVA" is much more than a drag show film. Recently shown at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the film is now out in limited run. If you can find it, you won't be disappointed.

It is impressive how well an Irish team captures the reality of poverty everywhere, that this story takes place in Cuba and involves transvestites is not relevant. You can place it anywhere in the world and it will resonate as loud.

I think there is nothing out of place here. The locations, the clothing, the atmosphere transport you to the daily struggle of the dispossessed. How much hope can these people have? No safe jobs, no income, no food; nothing to hold to, nothing to lose. Still, with all their shortcomings, they also show solidarity; apparently everyone is on his/her own, but in times of need there will always be someone to lend a hand. And this is what made me like the movie, the perfect portrait of this part of society. It is what I have seen through the years in my country; this could have happened in Mexico City, and the occupation of the characters be any other, the fact of the pulling together is always there.

Whoever talks about drag performances, lip-syncing, bad editing, missed the whole point of the movie and has no idea what real life in poor Latin America is like. This is a crash course on the subject. The lengths this young boy goes to survive are impressive; to him, being alive is enough, what it takes doesn't scare him: Been there, done that. And so everybody else: his hustler friend, the old drag, the young woman, even the father with what is left for him. Only strength can hold someone in such dire conditions.

This is one of the most moving films I have seen in my life and, as I said before, that it is Irish makes it even more valuable. If you are going to watch it, do it with an open heart, you will feel the soul of real people in an all too real and difficult world. Believe me, this is no fiction, this is the real life.

In the 1970s, when I lived in Old San Juan (Puerto Rico), there was a black, round transvestite known as Lorena, who performed at the club "Cabaret," where he was a sensation for a couple of months with his hyper-dramatic interpretations of songs like Roberta Flack's "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". He knelt on the stage, prayed, pleaded, even wept a bit, never losing his sense of humor, nor hiding the effect of detachment which, in general, good transvestite shows produce. Then, about three decades later, living in La Habana, I realized that the local homosexual subculture survived in a bubble, with patterns of social behavior (ranging from partying to couple interaction) that referred me to times gone by, as a recycling of the 1950s at the close of the 20th century. These manifestations, as well as the bitchiness in relations, have, of course, not died on or off the island, and they persist along with the "urbanity" of the "gay" community (more selective and classist), but I found they were almost the rule in Cuba. These two memories combined in my head, when the Irish film "Viva" ended and Héctor Medina as Jesus, the hairdresser who chooses to be a transvestite, became a kind of La Lupe, crying, imploring, pulling curtains from the cabaret managed by Mama (Luis Alberto García), in a highly current story, if we only consider the homophobia that reigns in almost all contemporary societies and that is at the center of the movie. At the same time, in the script by Mark O'Halloran, the same man who wrote the remarkable "Garage" (2007), I perceived a certain "poofy fascination" with an old and decadent universe that cries out for renewal. If O'Halloran achieved a well-measured drama in the Irish countryside in "Garage," I think that in other people's territory he emphasized the exotic and lost in realism. Despite the attempt to truthfully show misery and the alternatives of a young man who, in the absence of the stage of a transvestite club, opts for prostitution, "Viva" is a syrupy portrait of the streets of Cuba (that "inner Havana," opposed to the better-off life of the privileged people of the island) and its dens (as opposed to the big, fancy cabarets with larger budgets). One can overlook the filmmakers' ecstasy with the old- fashioned spectacles of transvestites (by interpreters-actors who have always lived a marginal existence and suffered severe exploitation), but where "Viva" loses more effectiveness is in its melodramatic approach to the relationship between Jesus and his father (Jorge Perugorría), who suddenly breaks into the boy's life and opposes his purpose. There is enough material to incite tears and emotion, as in the best melodramas, with music that exaggerates the pain we already perceive in the good performances by Medina, Perugorría, García, Laura Alemán and Paula Alí. For that drama beyond moderation, "Viva" is enjoyed, but I suppose there must be followers of film aesthetics according to Bruce La Bruce, Larry Clark, Gaspar Noé and Gustavo Vinagre, who would have been grateful for something a bit more graphic in the approach to eroticism and violence that permeate "Viva".

The first thing that knocks you out is the cinematography. It is a marvel how they can pull that off in a run-down, old, desolate place like Old Havana. But besides the obvious drag-queen story there is a very realistic depiction of life in Havana which, although touched up a bit, still gives the viewer a sense of how it really is. Well-known Cuban actors Luis Alberto Garcia (unrecognizable in drag) and Jorge Perugorría give excellent performances, but the star is newcomer Hector Medina. The only low point of the movie is the subtitle translation which does not do justice to the writing. I'm not sure how this film will play in Peoria, but in Miami's Little Havana where I saw it today it did just fine.

At the screening, the director, Paddy gave an introduction about his personal experience with seeing a drag performance years ago where an individual was having the best time of their lives. He said that those who knew the performer were crying due to the fact that that was the only place this individual could truly be who they were.

That introduction set the mood for the movie. I'm afraid if I wasn't lucky enough to have the director give some backstory I would've liked it less.

The beginning of the film had a few clichés. A troubled protagonist unsure of how to make money, family issues, shopping in record stores. As it went on the clichés dwindled, immersing the audience in Cuba. Our main character's routine continued, and I found myself falling more into his psyche. His family issues became more relevant, his troubles were mine, and even the records had an important role in the story.

By the end people around me were weeping.

The only note I had was that there were a handful of times where moments should've been longer. Just an extra few seconds on those emotional scenes would've gone a long way. Not sure if that's a directing or editing critique.

I'm afraid of using an incorrect term here, so forgive me if I do. But as LGBT rights continue to finally be as important as they should've been decades ago, it's great to see more films like this, especially when they are well done. I hope this film gets the recognition it deserves.