Fidel

Cuba's Fidel Castro is a survivor. Having outlasted nine U.S. Presidents and survived numerous assassination attempts by the CIA, Castro has ruled Cuba for 43 years and, whether you love him or hate him, he must be considered one of the most important political figures of the 20th century. Fidel, a documentary by Cuban-American journalist, Estella Bravo, is a sympathetic portrait of the Cuban leader that was commissioned by Channel 4 in Britain, and won the Distinguished Achievement for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking from the Urbanworld Film Festival in New York. The film spans a period of 40 years of Castro's rule from his early childhood and college days to his Presidency of Cuba and includes interviews with Harry Belafonte, Nelson Mandela, Alice Walker, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Sydney Pollock, and others. Rare footage shows him swimming with his bodyguards, working in the fields cutting sugar cane, visiting his childhood school, hanging out with Ted Turner and Jack Nicholson, and talking with Elian Gonzales, the six-year old boy who became a rallying point for Cuban exiles in Miami.

Released from prison after serving two years of a fifteen-year sentence, Castro took a ragtag army of volunteers and recruited farmers, women, and working people in the mountains to fight a decade-long guerilla war that led to the overthrow of American-backed Fulgencio Batista and his takeover of Cuba in 1959. Unfortunately, Ms. Bravo shows us very little of the war or the reasons behind the popular uprising (better depicted in the Russian film I Am Cuba). Once in power, Castro began a series of agrarian reforms that included nationalizing the foreign refineries, seizing U.S. owned businesses such as Chase Manhattan Bank, United Fruit Company, and Texaco Oil. Added to that, American dismay at the mass trials of those who opposed the revolution led to the establishment of the U.S. embargo in 1960 and Castro's embrace of the Soviet Union, the establishment of a Communist dictatorship, and the suspension of democratic elections.

Though at times revealing, I found Fidel on the whole to be overly simplistic. Ms. Bravo extols Castro's virtues on almost every front including his support for free health care including surgical procedures unavailable in other Third World Countries, and Cuba's universal education for all its citizens up to the tertiary level. These accomplishments are important, yet many contentious issues are simply ignored. Bravo never mentions that homosexuality was considered counterrevolutionary and subject to imprisonment and forced labor until 1988 nor the Human Rights Watch Report in 2000 that states that Cuba has routinely imprisoned and/or harassed "peaceful opponents of the government". I recognize that many of the well documented abuses have come about because of Castro's desire to protect the revolution, knowing full well that the U.S. has channeled millions of dollars to dissidents in hopes of destroying it, yet these are issues that cry out for fuller examination. While Castro has become a symbol of courage and independence for millions of Third World people, he is neither saint nor demon, but a man of deep contradictions and complexities whose full story waits to be told.

By the time that I saw "Fidel", I had known about the situation between Cuba and the United States for many years (I think that I first became aware of it when I was about ten). But it was quite fascinating to see Fidel Castro - who turns 81 today - just as a regular man, doing things that anyone else does in his/her daily life; some early footage even shows him without a beard! Along with Castro himself, there are also interviews with people like Harry Belafonte and Sydney Pollack putting in their two cents about him. As for the famous people who have gone to Cuba, I wasn't surprised about Jack Lemmon, Jack Nicholson and Muhammad Ali, but it was an eye-opener that Ted Turner has gone there (but then again, Ted Turner isn't Rupert Murdoch). Other famous Americans who have traveled to Cuba include Jimmy Carter, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda and Steven Spielberg.

Now, the Bush administration of course does everything in its power to vilify Cuba. But you know something? Cuba has national health care, Cuba has never invaded any other countries, Cuba has no nukes, and Cuba helped the South African people bring down apartheid. How does the Bush administration plan to respond to that? As it is, that last part brings us to some of the things relating to Cuba since the documentary came out. On September 11, 2001, all flights into and out of the US were canceled, so Cuba offered its airspace to planes that couldn't enter the US. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Cuba offered medical assistance (but the Bush administration naturally refused to answer). And, as we saw in "Sicko", Michael Moore took 9/11 rescue workers there to get medical treatment, and they got quality treatment.

All in all, I staunchly recommend this documentary. Also appearing in it are Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Elian Gonzalez and Che Guevara.

Love him or hate him, it can scarcely be denied that Fidel Castro was one of the most significant political figures of the 20th century, and he will be spoken of well into the twenty-first and beyond. Estela Bravo's documentary FIDEL, THE UNTOLD STORY, is unabashedly pro-Castro, but in a country which features political discourse of such diminished level men like George W. Bush can become president of the United States, perhaps it is a fortunate thing that a film maker has produced a work that offers insight not only into Castroism, but to the appeal it has long held in different corners of the Americas and the world. For better or worse, Fidel Castro for much of his life has walked much of his talk as regards the creation of a world in which nations on the periphery no longer have to exchange their resource on terms favorable to the most powerful countries. For millions of people in the so-called Third World, he is a hero, and it is ironic that in the United States- which claims the most open exchange of ideas and information of any civilization anywhere in the history of the world- there is so very little understanding of Castro, or the Cuban phenomenon. Well, Estela Bravo offers us a film that provides a little clarity on the question. As a high school teacher, I can appreciate the discussion this work will spark, and I recommend it highly. Sympathetic though Bravo's work is, she picks up on a truth about Casro that George Orwell once spoke of Gandhi: there are a great many politicians in this era, in our world who will leave behind them nowhere near so clean a smell as will Fidel. And that's pretty sad, but it's true.

Not everyone's piece of cake, paradoxically,teaches much about the US's own propaganda efforts, by depicting Cuba's attempt at countering it with its own pro-Fidel twist.

Not a movie that will be taken lightly by Cuban exiles, but good documentary sequences by themselves make it worthwhile. And some previously undisclosed information on the USA-Soviet Union accord which lead to the 1963 missile disarmament in Cuba in exchange for the US withdrawal of its Turkey stationed missiles and agreement not to invade Cuba.

Of course, this accord did not cover the numerous attempts at Fidel's assassination by the CIA, as well as the US execution of Chile's democratically elected President Allende, facts now overtly displayed in the CIA's Washington DC museum.

Makes one wonder. There is no Universal good country or bad country. Even visions of the conflicts between cowboys and Indians were much tainted by shining badges under broad white hats imposing justice at a rope's end to the original American savages. Politically incorrect term Natives seems to be much in vogue, deep roots of prejudice, notwithstanding.

An illuminating documentary on Fidel Castro and his accomplishments: his overthrow of the ruthless dictator Batista, his accomplishment in providing universal health care and education for the Cuban people (a population largely illiterate before the Revolution), his fights against racism and tyranny both at home and abroad (2000 Cubans died fighting apartheid in S Africa). Commentary by Castro supporters such as Nelson Mandela, Alice Walker, Sydney Pollack, Muhammad Ali, and others.

Whether you love or hate the man, the documentary provides us with a perspective that US government and the Miami exiles do not want us to see. Look for it on Ebay!