Compelling stuff from Cuba

The seventh Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival runs until October 2. Guardian columnist BC Pires has been writing about the films since 1988. He served on the first Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival jury in 2009 and will pick a Film of the Day for every day of the festival. Today’s choice is: Motherland or Death (Vitaly Mansky/2012/ Russia-Cuba/Documentary/ Spanish with English subtitles/99 mins) 3.30 pm, MovieTowne, Port-of-Spain. Cuba is a dictatorship with all forms of art strictly controlled by the government; but it seems no one told the filmmakers that. Cuban films, even the ones made by Russians, dwarf the regional competition in almost every category, with one weekend evening of made-for-television dramas, eg, containing more casual nudity than the combined footage of all West Indian movies so far made—which is not to say that nudity makes for better cinema, but, in the context of the supposedly rigid control of the media, it could fairly be called “revealing.” 

 

In the same way that nudity and sex scenes seem to be always available, as a matter of personal choice, to the director or screenwriter of Cuban drama, so, too, open criticism of the State seems readily portrayable by the documentary filmmaker. In this startlingly good documentary, ordinary Cubans assess their lives and the benefits of the revolution entering its second half-century. The informed freedom with which they speak, compared with the politically ignorant timidity of most Americans depicted in their own supposedly freer media, raises the question of which system is really more open; the dialogue of Motherland or Death compares extremely favourably with an episode of Jerry Springer. Add to that powerful audio some of the most beautiful cinematography ever shot anywhere—the long tracking shots that open and close the film will be copied—and you have a riveting film that will take your breath away, unless you’re already dead. A frontrunner for the Best Documentary prize and an unforgettable night at the movies. If you race, you may be able to catch Fish at the Little Carib first.