Nada

I caught this Cuban film at at an arthouse film club. It was shown shortly after the magisterial 1935 Silly Symphony cartoon where the Isle of Symphony is reconciled with the Isle of Jazz. What with the recently deceased Ruben Gonzalez piped through speakers in this old cinema-ballroom and a Cuban flag hanging from peeling stucco rocaille motifs, the scene was set for a riproaring celebration of engaged filmmaking and synchronised hissing at the idiocies of Helms-Burton. But then the film started. And the cinema's peeling paint gradually became more interesting than the shoddy mess on-screen.

The storyline of Nada Mas promises much. Carla is a bored envelope-stamper at a Cuban post office. Her only escape from an altogether humdrum existence is to purloin letters and rewrite them, transforming basic interpersonal grunts into Brontëan outbursts of breathless emotion. Cue numerous shots of photogenic Cubans gushing with joy, grief, pity, terror and the like.

The problem is that the simplicity of the narrative is marred by endless excursions into film-school artiness, latino caricature, Marx brothers slapstick and even - during a particularly underwhelming editing trick - the celluloid scratching of a schoolkid defacement onto a character's face.

Unidimensional characters abound. Cunda, the boss at the post office, is a humourless dominatrix-nosferatu. Her boss-eyed accomplice, Concha, variously points fingers, eavesdrops and screeches. Cesar, the metalhead dolt and romantic interest, reveals hidden writing talent when Carla departs for Miami. A chase scene (in oh-so-hilarious fast-forward) is thrown in for good measure. All this would be fine in a Mortadello and Filemon comic strip, but in a black-and-white zero-FX flick with highbrow pretensions, ahem.

Nada Mas attempts to straddle the stile somewhere between the 'quirky-heroine-matchmakes-strangers' of Amelie and the 'poetry-as-great-redeemer' theme of Il Postino. Like Amelie, its protagonist is an eccentric single white female who combats impending spinsterdom by trying to bring magic into the lives of strangers. And like Il Postino, the film does not flinch from sustained recitals of poetry and a postman on a bicycle takes a romantic lead. Unfortunately, Nada Mas fails to capture the lushness and transcendence of either film.

There are two things that might merit watching this film in a late-night TV stupor. The first is the opening overhead shot of Carla on a checker-tiled floor, which cuts to the crossword puzzle she is working on. The second is to see Nada Mas as a cautionary example: our post Buena Vista Social Club obsession with Cuban artistic output can often blinker us into accepting any dross that features a bongo on the soundtrack. This film should not have merited a global release - films such as Waiting List and Guantanamera cover similar thematic territory far more successfully.

Nada Más is as complex as the Cuban people itself. The little pieces of daily life activities get complicated by bore and danger. This movie have the kind of juice that make your head spin. The characters are well elaborated and portrayed in the caricaturing way of the silent film era. The viewer feel bouncing between hate, sympathy and despise for everyone involved in the plot and depending of the moment. This movie can be anything but boring. I recommend it.

Although this has been called an over-the-top story some of the writing is done very passionately. I particularly enjoyed the letter being read while a women was taking a bath. I wish some of this passion could be present in more North American movies. Thais Valdes is an excellent actress and hopefully she can get more roles in movies like this in the near future. The satire with the bureaucracy in the mail office is dead on.

While the film-maker kept insisting this film is "nothing" I found it a brilliant piece of art. Filmed in black and white, but with certain items, emblems, and images in vibrant color, this film speaks volumes through it's manipulation of the art of film to say "nothing".

It is pure farce, poignant drama, and slapstick comedy all rolled into a love poem to Cuba.

While nothing in Nada should be taken too seriously, it never once panders to its audience with simple cheap laughs. Well, ok, some characters are certainly intended as pure caricatures, which others have rightly identified as in the style of "commedia d'ell arte". This is part of the film's joy. This is not to say that the film doesn't have some poignant moments.

Nada is the story of a bored and lonely postal worker in Havana named Carla who decides to play God with the letters that pass through her hands. Through a twist in fate, a spilled bit of coffee, Carla happens upon the world of the letter writers, those whose mail she mindlessly stamps "priority" on a daily basis. Suddenly she is confronted with the sadness and loneliness of not just her own life, but the world outside. For a lark she decides to re-write the letter ruined by the coffee spill, but instead of re-writing it as it had been written, she alters it.

In one of it's more brilliant and moving moments; using truly mesmerizing camera work, we listen as Carla re-writes a letter to a woman bent on ending her life. The woman's long flower patterned dress is in color. We follow this woman into an old empty house; following at a distance, as she finds her way to the bath. Carla has written her about the need to live life with a passion, and not to live simply a long life. We watch as the woman disrobes, and then slips into the bath tub, disappearing from the screen, the camera moves in slowly towards the tub. This deliberate and slow movement heightens the melodrama unfolding. Has she just climbed into an empty tub? Is this her way of ending an un-lived life? I won't spoil this moment here, you should see it for yourself.

The amazing thing about this moment, is that, as different as it is from much of the rest of the film, it doesn't feel out of place. Nor does the moment as we listen to Carla's re-write of a letter from a daughter to her father. We watch this man, thinking about the letter he has just read, as he moves slowly to the sea wall, the camera first facing him, and then slowly moving up over, and then behind him to look out to the sea with him. We don't linger, but the point has been made, for during this high tracking shot over him we have been listening to Carla's voice tell us of the love this daughter holds for her father, even while she hasn't seen him for years.

But again, Nada never takes itself seriously, it isn't about anything (please read a wry smile here). And soon we are always back to some silly moment with the nosy bureaucrats in the Post Office, or the noisome, neighbor. And finally Nada fulfills itself as a love story between Carla and Cesar, a fellow postal worker she enlists in her efforts to change the world around her.

Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti indicated at the SFIFF where I saw it, that Nada is the first of a trilogy he plans to make. For a first feature that can be both subtle at one moment, and hit you with a sledge-hammer the next I only hope the wait is very short.

Since we in the United States don't often get to see Cuban movies*, it's refreshing to see "Nada". It portrays a woman named Carla Perez working in a Havana post office opening people's letters and rewriting them so as to make them more comprehensible and even poetic...much to the chagrin of her supervisors (who, if combined, would act like and resemble the Wicked Witch of the West). But this might set in motion a new path for Carla's relationships with people.

Aside from the main plot, the movie gives us a look at the lives of ordinary Cubans, far from the famous images of Fidel Castro and his cabinet. The black-and-white cinematography with a few objects colored gives one - well, gives me, at least - the sense of people feeling somewhat depressed in a world without guaranteed electricity, but trying as hard as possible to pull through.

One thing that I noticed in the movie is that all the characters had names beginning with C (Carla, Cunda, Concha, etc). I wonder what was up with that. It may have had something to do with Cuba beginning with C (along with Cuba's trading partner China).

Overall, worth seeing.

*It seems like this might also be the case in Cuba; I think that most of the movies which they get to see in Cuba come from - where else? - the United States.