I Am Cuba

I am Cuba (Spanish: Soy Cuba; Russian: 'Я - Куба, Ya - Kuba)
Directed by	Mikhail Kalatozov
Produced by	Bela Fridman Semyon Maryakhin Miguel Mendoza
Written by	Enrique Pineda Barnet Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Starring	Sergio Corrieri Salvador Wood José Gallardo
Music by	Carlos Fariñas
Cinematography	Sergey Urusevsky
Editing by	N. Glagoleva
Distributed by	Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos (ICAIC)
Release date(s)	1964 8 March 1995 (US) 22 May 2003 (Cannes Film Festival)
Country	Cuba Soviet Union
Language	Spanish English

I am Cuba (Spanish: Soy Cuba; Russian: Я Куба, Ya Kuba) is a 1964 Soviet-Cuban film directed by Mikhail Kalatozov at Mosfilm. The film was not received well by either the Russian or Cuban public and was almost completely forgotten until it was re-discovered by filmmakers in the United States thirty years later. The acrobatic tracking shots and idiosyncratic mise en scene prompted Hollywood directors like Martin Scorsese to begin a campaign to restore the film in the early 1990s.

The film is shot in black and white, sometimes using infrared film obtained from the Soviet military to exaggerate contrast (making trees and sugar cane almost white, and skies very dark but still obviously sunny). Most shots are in extreme wide-angle and the camera passes very close to its subjects, whilst still largely avoiding having those subjects ever look directly at the camera.

History

Shortly after the 1959 Cuban revolution overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the socialist Castro government, isolated by the United States after the latter broke diplomatic and trade relations in 1961, turned to the USSR for film partnerships. The Soviet government, interested in promoting international socialism, agreed to finance a film about the Cuban revolution.

The director was given considerable freedom to complete the work, and was given much help from both the Soviet and Cuban governments. They made use of innovative filming techniques, such as coating a watertight camera's lens with a special submarine periscope cleaner, so the camera could be submerged and lifted out of the water without any drops on the lens or film. At one point, more than a thousand Cuban soldiers were moved to a remote location to shoot one scene — this despite the then-ongoing Cuban missile crisis.

In another scene, the camera follows a flag over a body, held high on a stetcher, along a crowded street. Then it stops and slowly moves upwards for at least four storeys until it is filming the flagged body from above a building. Without stopping it then starts tracking sideways and enters through a window into a cigar factory, then goes straight towards a rear window where the cigar workers are watching the procession. The camera finally passes through the window and appears to float along over the middle of the street between the buildings. These shots were accomplished by the camera operator having the camera attached to his vest - like an early, crude version of a Steadicam - and the camera operator also wearing a vest with hooks on the back. An assembly line of technicians would hook and unhook the operator's vest to various pulleys and cables that spanned floors and building roof tops.

Even though it had such great support, the movie was given a cold reaction by audiences. In Havana it was criticized for showing a rather stereotypical view of Cubans, whilst in Moscow it was considered naïve, not revolutionary enough, even too sympathetic to the lives of the bourgeois pre-Fidel classes. Also, upon its original release, the movie never reached Western countries largely because it was a communist production.

When the USSR collapsed in the early 1990s, I Am Cuba was virtually unknown. In 1992, Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante, the guest co-director of the Telluride Film Festival, screened a print of the film at the festival as part of a retrospective on Kalatazov. The San Francisco International Film Festival screened the film in 1993. Shortly after the festival, three film professionals who had screened I Am Cuba at the San Francisco screening contacted friends at Milestone Films in New York. The tiny film distributor had released several "lost" or neglected older films (as it continues to do). Milestone screened a slightly blurry unsubtitled VHS tape of the film and then went about acquiring the distribution rights from Mosfilm in Russia. In 1994, a friend invited Martin Scorsese to a private screening. Scorsese was amazed by the film, and when Milestone approached him to lend his name to the company's release of the film, he was happy and enthusiastic to do so. Milestone's release was also co-presented by another fan of I Am Cuba, director Francis Ford Coppola. Milestone's release opened at New York's Film Forum in March 1995. For the tenth anniversary of the film, Milestone debuted a new 35mm restoration of I am Cuba without the Russian overdubbing in September 2005.

Story

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The movie consists of four distinct short stories about the suffering of the Cuban people and their reactions, varying from passive amazement in the first, to a guerrilla march in the last. Between the stories, a female narrator (credited "The Voice Of Cuba") says such things as, "I am Cuba, the Cuba of the casinos, but also of the people."

The first story (centered on the character Maria) shows the destitute Cuban masses contrasted with the splendor in the American-run gambling casinos. Maria lives in a shanty-town on the edge of Havana and hopes to get married to her fruit-seller boyfriend, Rene. She takes a job as a dancer in one of the bars filled with rich Americans. At these bars she is known as Betty. One night, one of the rich gentlemen at the club asks her if he can see where she lives. She takes him to her small hovel where she reluctantly undresses. The next morning he tosses her a few dollars and takes her most prized possession, her crucifix necklace. As he is about to leave Rene walks in, and sees his ashamed fiance. The American callously says, "Bye Betty!" as he makes his exit.

The next story is about a farmer, Pedro, who just raised his biggest crop of sugar yet. However, his landlord rides up to the farm as he is harvesting his crops and tells him that he has sold the land that Pedro lives on to United Fruit, and Pedro and his family must leave immediately. Pedro asks what about the crops? The landowner says, "you raised them on my land. I'll let you keep the sweat you put into growing them, but that is all," and he rides off. Pedro lies to his children and tells them everything is fine. He gives them all the money he has and tells them to have a fun day in town. After they leave, he lights all of his crops and house on fire. He then dies from the smoke inhalation.

The third story describes the suppression of rebellious students led by a character named Enrique at Havana University (featuring one of the longest camera shots). Enrique is frustrated with the small efforts of the group and wants to do something drastic. He goes off on his own planning on shooting Batista himself, however when he gets him in his sights, he sees that the president is surrounded by his young children, and Enrique cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. While he is away, his friends are throwing flyers out to a crowd. They are intercepted by police officers who arrest them and shoot some of them. Later on Enrique is leading a protest at the university. More police are there to break up the crowd with fire hoses. Enrique is shot after the demonstration becomes a riot. At the end, his body is carried through the streets, he has become a martyr to his cause.

The final part shows how Mariano, a typical farmer, ends up joining the rebels in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, ultimately leading to triumphal march into Havana to proclaim the revolution.

American Presence in the Film

Whilst there is a degree of American presence throughout the film, despite the Communist roots of the film, it is hard in any way to classify the portrayal as "anti-American". Most such appearance may even be classified as "accidental", such as the continuous presence of American built cars. Scripted presence is represented by:

• Story 1 - The clientele in the nightclub are all American. It is an American who takes Maria home to her shack and pays to deflower her and gives her extra money to cover taking her crucifix (clearly her only treasured possession). Unlike his coworkers, the American wears a beard (to indicate that he is "liberal" c. 1964) and appears more sympathetic and understanding.
• Story 2 - Whilst there is little direct American presence here, the company buying the farmer's land is United Fruit, but this is done through a ruthless Cuban landowner. Strangely any negativity implied to American companies is counter-acted by his son and daughter at the same time going to a local open-air bar and specifically ordering two Coca Colas, and then listening to an American-made juke-box. However, it could be argued that the children are being "alienated from the tools of production": while harvesting sugar cane they drink the juice but then capitalists expropriate their father's land and sells the children what was formerly free.
• Story 3 - In that this story starts with a group over rather over-boisterous American sailors on leave, this story looks as if it may be going to end differently. The sailors surround a teenage girl and then pursue her down the street. She is rescued by a student, the focal figure of the third story. However any potential battle is defused and the sailors "give him a break" and continue on their way singing. However, it could be argued that the sailors are cowards and that the film is saying that Cuba merely needs to stand up to the USA.
• Story 4 - Arguably this has no American presence. However, when Mariano joins the rebels the Castro figure explains that they do not "sow Springfields", referring clearly to the American Springfield rifle. Ironically his gun appears to be an ex-service U.S. M1 Garand rather than a Springfield. There is a mix of Russian and American weapons in the final scene of marching rebels.

At worst the interpretation of the American view on Cuba in the film is "indifference".

Documentary

In 2005 a documentary about the making of I Am Cuba was released called Soy Cuba: O Mamute Siberiano or I Am Cuba: the Siberian Mammoth directed by a Brazilian, Vicente Ferraz. The film looks at the history of the making of the film, explains some of the technical feats of the film and there are interviews with many of the people who worked on it.

See also

• Cinema of Cuba

External links

• I Am Cuba at the Internet Movie Database
• Soy Cuba, O Mamute Siberiano at the Internet Movie Database
• I Am Cuba at AllRovi
• From Russia with Love, an article by Richard Gott from The Guardian November 2005