7 Dias em Havana

This movie has gotten overall bad reviews. It is in fact uneven, as you might expect from 7 directors handling 7 segments to some extent intermingled.

If you don't understand enough Spanish to follow the Cuban dialog, I am sure a lot gets lost in translation. Others complain the film tells them nothing new.

From my perspective, with some familiarity with Cuban culture, down to the iconic Hotel Nacional featured in the film (where I stayed for 3 mights in 2011), I can only say that I may have learned little that is new but through most of the film, the vibrancy, the music, the sensuality, the sheer joy and pain of the Cuban experience shone through and it touched my soul.

Seven directors shoots his own style films within a shared setting (Havana), by seven parts of just one flowing story in which characters are placed more than one part. Hence, this movie can't be degraded to be a collage; contrary, it is like a single feature-length in which visual narration style is changed according to story's flowing.

Suleiman and Tabio's parts are my favourites.

Absolutely should be seen.

I will keep this review short and spoiler-free.

"7 Days In Havana" is a compilation of seven short stories, each with it's own director and character(s). The first two "days" seemed to be taking the film in the right direction, but after that everything fell apart.

Some elements try to bridge together some of the "days", but the whole structure of the storytelling ends up being an inconsistent mess.

I thought that all the cliché representations of Cuba would be lacking, but "7 days in Havana" gives almost nothing new.

A wasted Saturday night for a movie I would not re-watch.

I'm going to come over a little bias because I was invited to the premiere in Havana - which was subject to the vagaries of technology in Cuba and it meant that I didn't see the final chapter.

I wasn't fussed about seeing the film before it happened, I'd rather have spent the time drinking rum around the corner from the cinema.

The reality was that by the time we'd all seen the film we were all drawn in, hooked, and entirely captured by the simple brilliance of the performance.

Life in Cuba is like nowhere else in the world. The clashing combination of political and ideological cultures is unique. The sacrifice, the clash of ancient and modern perspective, the desire of modern accompaniments. It's all explored. And only the hardest of folks would drive things that way.

'Seven (or if you prefer, '7') Days in Havana' is a series of little filmettes, each by one of seven directors, set in Havana. At first it seems the connecting thread between the segments is foreigners: a US student dates a drag artist, a Serbian film director attends a film festival, a Palestinian man waits to see the President... but the later segments concentrate on Cubans: a young woman caught in a lesbian relationship is forced to undergo a cleansing ritual; an old woman bullies her neighbours into building a fountain for the Virgin Mary in her living room... The quality is variable (I nodded off during the lesbian one, which really drags; but found the fountain in the living room segment with its colourful characters and lively storyline most enjoyable), but in the main I enjoyed the total package. How accurate a portrayal of modern-day Cuba it is I don't know, though.