FILM REVIEW: I am Cuba

“Why are you running away? You came to have fun. Don’t avert your eyes. Look! I am Cuba. For you, I am the casino, the bar, hotels and brothels. But the hands of these children and old people are also me."

I Am Cuba was made in 1964 as a propaganda film by the Soviet government. Coauthored by Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Cuban novelist Enrique Pineda Barnet and directed by Russian filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov, I am Cuba explores European and American influences on Cuba during the pre-revolutionary period and chronicles the events leading up to the revolution itself. The first segment looks at Cuba under Batista and portrays it as a playground for Americans whose presence encourages the exploitation of women. The second segment tells the story of an elderly man living in poverty because the land on which he grows his sugar cane is sold to the United Fruit Company, an American agricultural corporation and the third segment follows a group of university students who plot against the Batista regime, but are caught and become martyrs to the revolution. In the final segment, a peasant joins the revolution after being driven from his home by Batista’s bombs. He goes to a rebel camp in the Sierra Maestra and joins Castro's troops to fight for the revolution.

The film begins with aerial shots of the Cuban landscape. Starting at the coast, the camera moves inland and a woman’s voice recounts the history of the Spanish conquest of Cuba beginning with Christopher Columbus’ visit to the island. Cuba is depicted as a country of great natural beauty that is colonized for the wealth that it can bring to the Spanish colonizers. After this brief introduction the film cuts to pre-revolutionary Cuba under Batista and looks at the long term consequences of colonial influence on Cuban culture.

In one of the most arresting scenes in the film, Kalatozov presents one of the main themes of the film: American domination through intimidation and the corrupting influence of American culture. The scene begins with the interior of a lavish nightclub decorated in a jumble of early 1960s Tropical style, Easter Island heads, and Africana. The camera examines a group of beautiful women who sit at the bar listening to a singer reminiscent of Otis Redding perform a nonsensical love song. As the camera moves away from the women, a group of American men sit discussing which of the women they want, claiming them proprietarily. A young woman, Maria, enters the nightclub and is taken to one of the men. She dances with him and, in a metaphor for American aggression, is dragged around the floor, repeatedly pushed into the arms of the other men. As the music becomes more rhythmic she moves involuntarily and the camera mimics her confusion by moving wildly among the sticks of cane that hang from the ceiling. In the background, women are shown dancing in bikinis and pseudo-African masks, showing how they are objectified and exotified for the American tourists.

This scene can be seen as an extended metaphor for American political, economic, and social relations with Cuba during Batista’s control. The American men in the nightclub feel they own Cuba and its people. The men feel a sense of ownership over Maria and treat her as a plaything, brutally, as if she has no say in her treatment or fate. She and the other women are seen as quaint and exotic and seem to be designed for the American’s pleasure and use. The visual aspects of this scene reinforce this idea. The nightclub’s background which provides a generalized sense of the tropical and exotic reveals that the Americans do not really know where they are or what culture it is they are visiting. For them, Havana is simply a vacation spot where their actions have no consequences and they may do as they please. The American soul music sung in Spanish increases this sense of confusion for the men, blurring the line which separates the United States from Cuba.

When one of the American men goes home with Maria, he wakes up to a different Havana from the one that existed for him the night before. He leaves the shanty Maria lives in only to get lost among the ramshackle buildings where small children beg him for money. He begins to panic and run from the crowd that has gathered around him. The woman’s voice from the opening of the film returns and asks him, “Why are you running away? You came to have fun. Don’t avert your eyes. Look! I am Cuba. For you, I am the casino, the bar, hotels and brothels. But the hands of these children and old people are also me." The rich American becomes lost in the Cuba that exists to support his playground; the world of pleasure that the rich Americans come to Havana to enjoy falls away and all that remains is the poverty of the people who must sell themselves to foreigners in order to survive.

Though I am Cuba was created as agitprop for the Soviet government, the film’s critical insight and incredible cinematography work together to create a film of great power. A must see for fans of international film.

Read a review of I am Cuba by Gary Morris at Bright Lights Film Journal