Miradas

This movie was OK. It was pretty well photographed but the script is sometimes loaded of pretentious unrealistic dialogue, or melodramatic moments. The music was pretty mediocre with reminiscents of the James Bond theme. What does agent 007 has to do with this existencial movie, I can't figure out yet.

The performances are mixed bag. The protagonist and the young girl are pretty good.

Overall is worth watching.

This film was shown as part of the Cuny Cinematheque, as I doubt it was ever seen in the USA before, or at least, not locally.

This is a very enigmatic view at today's Cuba. Director Enrique Alvarez gathers about eight very different characters in search of a movie. At times, he succeeds, at others, the viewer is left to his own devices because nothing is clearly revealed.

As with other Cuban films, this one is laden with symbolism. One wonders, since the different messages can be interpreted according to each viewer, about the sacrifices some of these people have made in order to survive in their own country. Also, Ana, the main character of the film, has returned after a marriage of convenience to a Norwegian who was her ticket to leave her life in the island during the economic crisis of the early 90s, after the end of the Soviet Union.

As history repeats itself, we are introduced to Ana's former lover, who shows up with a new girlfriend, who in turn, has decided to leave her country at all costs. In a way, director Perez seems to be saying that while Ana's destiny is in Cuba, he knows it does not work for everyone else.

At times the film feels as though is running in different directions as the director had no clue where he is taking us. At the center of the story there is a mysterious man, who might, or might not be, Ana's father who has come from his own exile to make amends.

Maybe the next time out, Mr. Perez will have a better story to tell us, as he shows talent for directing this very attractive cast with a more accomplished film.

Not so veiled critique of the regime: 1) that photography cannot show how the people are suffering inside themselves; 2) that the mother dies in childbirth (a real low blow to a regime that touts its public health achievements); 3) the call for Cuba to start anew, casting off "symbolically" the "baggage" of its the past; 4) the revelation that the daughter of the Havana fisherman is actually the genetic daughter of the Miami Cuban (named "Jesus"), suggesting the redemptive power of the Cuban exile community, etc., etc.

The best thing one can say about this movie is that it demonstrates the cunning of the regime. Get a filmmaker who wants to make a movie with an anti-regime allegorical twist to it--but choose one who will create a movie in which the wretched acting, the cheezy musical score, the uninspired camera work, and the banal and tortured plot will all ensure that the movie has no audience. A double victory for the regime: 1) it demonstrates that filmmakers can indeed criticize the regime and continue to work as artists in its pay; 2) the inevitable box office failure of this piece of smarmy dreck in the "West" demonstrates once again the West's utter artistic bankruptcy: its obeisance to crass commercial criteria precludes distribution of a film with a political and allegorical flair to it.