Miel para Oshún

the beholder owns the eye, and the film maker wields the dialectical prism. solas made a film about the Cuban dilemma. the protagonist Roberto was when a child kidnapped by his father, and taken to Miami (he believes that his mother abandoned him). as the first reel unwinds, Roberto as an adult is returning to Cuba to find his mother, and confront her. on his picaresque journey to encounter his mother, he travels across Cuba and discovers that he is among family and that he is not alone. solas who was a Marxist, subjects the financially well off Roberto to a Cuba reeling from the collapse of it's economy, but with it's heart still intact. it's a wonderful film about reconciliation.

Like all Cuban movies, this is made for Cubans with the knowledge that internationalists will be watching too; they're not made with the idea of instructing outsiders as to what's happening there. They do share with us, however, some of the daily realities of this remarkable people.

We get a lot of that in "Honey for Oshun" because it's a road movie.

Roberto also takes a road trip through his past, through the reality that his father kept from him. That - along with the trip through parts of a nation that our government forbids us to travel through in person - make for great viewing.

It's a fun movie.

So put aside all the preconceived ideas you might have about Cuba; this is not a propaganda film. Cuban filmmakers know they get their people discussing their problems and outsiders thinking about their stereotypes of Cuba, but they also know how to make entertaining movies.

"Honey for Oshun" is living proof of that.

We streamed "Miel para Oshún" on Netflix, and this is just the sort of film that reaffirms the reasons I subscribe: there is no other way I ever would have come across this movie, these actors, or this jewel of a story. Even if you know nothing about Cuba or Cubans, see this movie. This is a real tribute to them, to their sense of humor, inventiveness, and warmth.

Premise: 30-something, Cuban-born Roberto finally travels home from the U.S.A. after the death of his father to find that he has been lied to about his mother. He embarks on a sojourn of the soul, as well as a physical journey that is frustrating in extremis.

A buddy movie, a comedy, a drama, the movie is full of clever dialogue, some of which made me wonder if Castro's censors are lightening up, or just not "getting" it (a painter who stops painting because "some people saw strange allegories in my work" and made things difficult for her). This low-budget film proves that money isn't everything. It's moving, funny, intriguing and just plain entertaining. What else is there?

The movie had some good moments. The acting (especially the taxi driver) is decent. The view of the Cuban landscape, from one end of the country to the other, is, at times, delightful. The movie well evokes the yearning and pain of exile and the joy of reunion.

But, oh, oh, did the pace have to be so glacial?! I screened the movie with the idea of showing it in class (I'm a high school Spanish teacher). After about 15 minutes, I could easily imagine the entire class with their faces on their desks, sound asleep. Not good! Even the bleeping credits crawled across the screen for about fifteen minutes at the beginning of the film, soon becoming an annoying distraction.

And the central premise of the film...that Roberto "doesn't know who he is" because he's neither Cuban nor American...is completely ridiculous. There are about 100,000 other Cuban-American men just like Roberto in Miami who know exactly who they are. And the idea that a Cuban has to marry an American in the U.S. in order to get respect is just laughable. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Cubans here who are married to other Cubans or other Latinos and are doing just fine, thanks.

I guess this has to be seen as a movie that "could have been."

I wasn't sure what to expect and for the first 35 minutes or so I thought the film was going to be pure melodrama. But once the film got going I realized that this film is a look at one of the many cruel realities that both Cuban's and Cuban-American's face everyday, the loss of family and self. I thought the picture painted of Cuba and it's government was not overly critical. I was amazed, having been to Cuba myself and seeing the government control that this film was allowed to be shot, in that there were certain subtle criticisms of the government. Overall I thought the film was very well made and acted. If anything it certainly shows Cuba from Havana to the countryside. I do feel however that the almost romance between the lead character and his cousin was unnecessary and did nothing to improve the movie.