i am starting to write this review before going to see strawberry and chocolate , cuba’s oscar nominee for best foreign film , directed by tomas gutierrez alea ( who also directed the sometimes and in some circles critically acclaimed memorias del subdesarrollo– ” memories of underdevelopment ” .
i saw memorias as part of a cuban cinema class back in the late ’70s ; it merged the politics of the cuban revolution with mundane elements of the human condition .
i knew then that memorias was probably a state-sanctioned political missive , and now expect strawberry will follow suit .
fellow internetters , primarily in the newsgroup dedicated to cuba ( soc . culture . cuba ) , have mentioned that strawberry is a harsh criticism of the revolution and its current state of affairs .
i have jumped to the conclusion that strawberry is nothing more than a veiled attempt at espousing the party line–it probably looks like political criticism , but it ain’t so .
having some first hand and extensive anecdotal knowledge of castro’s repressiveness , i can’t conceive of his tolerating honest and adversarial criticism of the revolution , and i can’t imagine his letting anyone even suggest his failure as a leader of a failed movement .
as kids say these days , duh ! , the revolution’s current state needs no criticism ; its physical and spiritual crumbling is self evident .
the proper questions to put relate to castro’s legitimacy .
i bet the film takes castro’s power for granted , and that this or any other movie , produced under cuba’s state control , cannot question his right to run cuba’s political show ( ongoing now for more than 36 years ) .
that’s why i just can’t believe strawberry is an honest criticism of the regime .
let’s see what happens after the room goes dark and the screen lights up .
i saw the film–twice .
i was right ; castro remained intact .
strawberry negotiates the relationship between a young ” dialectic materialist , ” as he describes himself , and a homosexual photographer ( diego ) in 1979 cuba .
the young man ( david ) is the son of peasants ; a symbol of the revolution’s reason for being .
grateful to the revolution for the opportunity to receive a university education , he studies political science instead of literature , his avocation , because he perceives it is his duty .
therein lies a likely unintended irony , since cuba has no need for political theoreticians .
cuba’s government is castro .
diego’s lifestyle is the antithesis of revolutionary life .
he enjoys the finer things–tea , opera , art .
he does not do ” voluntary work ” for the revolution .
his small apartment is a sensual oasis .
the moniker ” bourgeois ” figuratively hangs over his head during the early parts of the movie .
however , he is a ” revolucionario ” in his own way .
the supporting roles are filled by : an aging busybody with a heart of gold and a troubled psyche ; david’s roommate , who rally takes the communist party line to its expected extreme ; david’s ex-girlfriend , who dumped him for another guy , yet wants to bed him before she leaves for italy with her husband ; german , a gay sculptor whose work diego is attempting to exhibit , and who strikes a faustian pact with the government .
gutierrez alea and co-director juan carlos tabio do a fine job at almost showing that homosexuals can be revolutionaries too .
heck , towards the end of the film you begin to think the guy deserves a medal for his patriotic fervor .
he really loves the revolution ( as supposedly does everybody else in cuba ) and wants to make it better by exposing and correcting some of its flaws .
real criticism is missing though .
this movie is political window dressing .
luis aguilar leon’s op .
ed .
piece on fresa in the miami herald ( 10 march 1995 , at 21a ) did not color my judgment ; it presaged my intuition .
aguilar leon expressed my sentiment about this film’s political angle best : like many artistic manifestations in cuba , strawberry and chocolate sprang from a totally manipulated environment .
as art critic ivan de la nuez well states in the latest issue of the magazine postmodern notes , the silenced artists are those who refuse to accept ” the charade in which artists can provoke up to a point , while the institutions legitimize themselves by forbidding them to go beyond that point . ”
although terrible propaganda , this is otherwise a fine film .