Soy Cuba, O Mamute Siberiano

I had the pleasure of screening this film at the Sundance Film Festival 2005 and was astounded. It is a truly captivating Documentary that not only follows the production of the monumental propaganda film "Soy Cuba" (I am Cuba) but also documents the dramatic economic changes that Cuba has faced since the 1960's when the film was made. Director Vincente Ferraz cleverly uses a mix of file footage and clips from "Soy Cuba", recent interviews with "Soy Cuba" filmmakers, and contrasting shots of locations from the film both now and then. It was highly entertaining and informative. If you are a Filmmaker, Film Student, or just an avid Film lover you must see this movie!

I'll make a film in Cuba that will be my answer and the whole of the Soviet people's to the blockade and the cruel aggression of US imperialism - Mikhail Kalatozov.

Some thirty years on Kalatozov's masterpiece of Soviet Realist agitprop has been rediscovered and restored by a new generation of filmmakers including Scorsese and Coppola who can admire the artistry and technical brilliance of the director, Urusevsky, his unconventional DOP, and the cast of unknowns who manage to rise above a clichéd and ill conceived script to create a rare piece of visual poetry.

The DVD box set includes Ferraz's award winning documentary 'I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth' in which the Brazilian filmmaker goes to Cuba in search of the surviving cast and crew to recreate a unique time when the revolution was fresh, the Cuban film industry was in its infancy, Che was making deals with Japanese film studios in return for sugar, and a naïve group of Soviet filmmakers came to the tropical island to lend a hand.

Kalatovoz's film bombed in Cuba due to the unaddressed cultural differences that existed between the Slavic filmmakers and their Caribbean counterparts, it was largely banned in the USSR for its depiction of the heady days US corruption, and was ignored in a hostile West, and the true highlight of this collection is when Ferraz reveals the films recent rehabilitation to a genuinely shocked cast and crew.

When the film was needed, it was ignored. When it's an archaeological artefact, it's rescued.

"Soy Cuba, O Mamute Siberiano", the documentary about the making of the Soviet-Cuban film "Soy Cuba", is of interest because after 40 years of having been made, it examines the fate of the original movie. We are taken to meet the surviving people that worked in the film. Vicente Ferraz, the director of the documentary, delves deeply into how a film that was influential, was forgotten by both partners of the production.

It's a curiosity piece to go back forty years to some of the places in which the film was shot. Havana served as the natural setting of the movie. The contrast between then and now is amazing. The city shows signs of deterioration, especially when certain parts of "Soy Cuba" looks today.

What surprises the viewer is the fact that most of the survivors that worked in the movie felt betrayed after the film had been ridiculed in Cuba. In fact, some of the newspaper clippings show how the film critics made fun and panned it in all the official media.

The amazing camera work by Sergei Urusevsky was never understood by the movie going public. The Soviet realism the director Mikheil Kalatozishvili gave the picture confounded the same people the film makers wanted to surprise. In a way, most Cubans grew up viewing American, European, and Latin America cinema, so the film was hard to digest by most of the population who didn't identify with what they saw on the screen.

A point is made about how "Soy Cuba" was rediscovered by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, who were the ones instrumental for bringing it to American audiences. This revolutionary work created quite a sensation and it started a curiosity for Americans in wanting to discover Cuba, which was a sort of forbidden fruit, so near, but so far away.

This documentary examines in detail the fate of a film that was doomed from the start, yet, as the director points out, it's an important piece of cinema.

There is a fine line between translucent propaganda and those films that are truly riveting and inspirational. Mikhail Kalatozishvili's I am Cuba is one of these truly revolutionary propaganda films of 1960's Communist society.

Through a series of episodic events, Sergei Urusevsky uses his revolutionary hand held video recording techniques to illustrate Cuba's progression from the demeaning and detrimental influences of Western society to an all-out inspirational view of the 'people power' mentality Cuba's people took to redefine and restructure the island and government. Contrasting the extravagances, comforts and luxurious lifestyles of the wealthy and upper class government officials with the staggering and austerity of the poor working class people, Kalatozishvili inspires his viewers to see the flaws of Western societal ways. By doing this, he effectively plants a communistic methodology into his viewers, encouraging them to throw out the materialistic attitudes corrupting government and reinvigorating them to favor the capable views of society set forth by Fidel Castro years earlier.

Kalatozishvili uses music to his favor in I am Cuba to further contrast materialistic and all-are-equal societies. Using bright stylistic sounds of jazz and the attractive imaging of well-to-do women dancing in aesthetically pleasing backgrounds, he forces resentment and jealousy into the poor working class' minds. At the same time, he uses soft, somber music in setting the mood for scenes that illustrate the revolutionaries' heartaches. To inspire the viewers, he uses patriotic songs sung solemnly, allowing the real voices of the revolutionaries to reverberate through the streets.

Kalatozishvili also uses many symbols to subliminally affect the thoughts of his viewers. One instance of this is his use of the white dove, a universal symbol of peace. The government officials shoot a dove and it falls to the ground, showing the materialistic government to be the end of peace. The revolutionaries, favoring the communistic ideology, then pick up the dove and carry it in front of them, illustrating their attempts to bring peace in the midst of corruptness. The materialistic government then shuts them out by using water hoses to control the crowd and keep the "peace" out.

Overall, there is a great appreciation for Kalatozishvili's methodology and his subtle propaganda techniques to inspire such an impoverished people against the corruptness and injustices introduced by Western society.