Get the freshest reviews, news, and more delivered right to your inbox! True art is revolutionary. It is interesting not only for its technical skill, but also because it betrays a certain interest in la dolce vita that is not entirely in keeping with the movie's revolutionary, agitprop stance. Worse, they are discovered by her fiancé, a humble fruit peddler, who believed she was a virgin. I Am Cuba is a showcase for some of the most astonishingly complex long takes ever devised. Don't have an account? By Total Film 13 January 2006. I am Cuba has as much to say about history as it does about film technique. Their deluxe I Am Cuba: The Ultimate Edition sports an excellent flat B&W encoding. His technique seems somewhat at odds with his purpose (you won't find shots like these in Italian neo-realism), but then the movie itself alternates between lyricism and propaganda. "I Am Cuba" is a 32-year-old propaganda film that has been recently rediscovered and is making the rounds on the art-house circuit. A beauty pageant is in progress. I Am Cuba review. The camera sinuously winds its way past bathing beauties, and then moves over the edge of the deck and descends vertically, apparently floating, down three or four stories to another deck, this one with a swimming pool. Treated to an excellent presentation, complete with optional subtitles and PCM sound, the disc sadly lacks any of the promised extras. Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for Cuba: I Am Time - Various Artists on AllMusic - 1997 - For such a small island, Cuba has had an enormous… I Am Cuba is an ode to a place that never existed and yet one that continues to exist. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. “The film fails to convince in its propaganda, but as a goofy view of a new Cuba it is heartily appreciated.” Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz Russian director Mikheil Kalatozishvili (“Cranes Are Flying,” 1957) provides in “I Am Cuba” a Soviet-Cuban tribute to the victors of the revolution against the Batista regime, which turns out to be a ringing endorsement for the Cuban masses. Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1964 “I Am Cuba” is a great poetic epic that blends the stirring visual daring of Russia’s cinema of revolution with an intoxicating Latin sensuality. Read the latest news, features and the Empire review of the film. Against her better judgment, a girl takes the man home to her shack, where he offends her by offering to buy her crucifix. Kalatozov's fancy shots are not limited to the opening extravaganza. See reviews & details on a wide selection of Blu-ray & DVDs, both new & used. There is a shot near the beginning of "I Am Cuba" that is one of the most astonishing I have ever seen. Politically nave maybe, but it works beautifully as straight cinema. Recommended For Mature Audiences, Spike Lee Receives American Cinematheque Award, America Has to Come to a Reckoning: Director Sam Pollard on MLK/FBI, The TV Homages of WandaVision are an Amusing, Unfulfilling Distraction. The film is not done with Americans. Even today, its virtuosic camerawork is breathtaking. Answer 1 of 8: Three of us girls going April 7th - 14th, does that coincide with you? Then we see the resistance: students agitating the change, including one who mimeographs propaganda pamphlets and then is shot dead, his body covered in a snow of the revolutionary sheets. This sequence, heavy on schmaltz, nevertheless has a real poignancy. "I Am Cuba" is an anti-American propaganda film, made as a Cuban-Soviet co-production, that has been snatched from oblivion, restored, and released in the United States as a presentation of Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola. The anti- American content is handled in a nightclub scene, where gum-chewing Yankees ogle the prostitutes, and one amateur anthropologist announces, "I'd like to see where these women live." If you see it, try to figure out how the camera floated down that wall. Forgot your password? From the swaying palm trees in the beginning credits to the final victory march, the temperament of the revolution in I Am Cuba is uniformly passionate and determined. I Am Cuba is a propaganda piece, and it shows, but it transcends that and becomes genuine cinematic art with strong humanism by its poetic storytelling. Milestone released a stand-alone I Am Cuba disc in 2000 that Savant hasn't seen. In the current moment of state-promoted luxury tourism, I am Cuba may also help us understand the complicated relationship between the Cuban Revolution’s past and present. Cinema's singular dream, so often betrayed elsewhere, is to deliver such visions as this. Forty-five years ago, director Mikhail Kalatozov was commissioned by the Soviet government to make a … I am Cuba/Soy Cuba features the stories of several Cuban citizen-types: a young prostitute, a farmer, a young revolutionary and so on, up to the start of the island's Castro Revolution. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for I am Cuba (Soy Cuba) - (Mr Bongo Films) (1968) [DVD] at Amazon.com. Since the film's prediction of a brave new world under Fidel Castro has not resulted in a utopia for Cubans, who suffer under one of the world's most dismal bureaucracies, the film today seems naive and dated - but fascinating. I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba) (1964) – Film Review I Am Cuba (1964) is a Soviet-Cuban propaganda film directed by veteran filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov and released at the height of the Cold War. This loony, quasi-masterpiece is one of the great jagged edges of film history. Mere propaganda only reinforces the status quo. Some of the most exhilarating camera movements and most luscious black-and-white cinematography you'll ever see inhabit this singular, delirious 141-minute communist propaganda epic. Its rather straight-forward in terms of plot, as it shows 4 different vignettes of everyday life, portraying the human struggle of living under harsh circumstances despite of the beautiful surroundings of Cuba. There is a sequence later in the film that begins with the streets filling with demonstrators and then seemingly floats, in an unbroken take, into a high-rise cigar factory. The resulting assault is so epicly impassioned it's less about Cuba per se than the fusillade of movement, shadow, light, vertigo, and landscape on the viewer's tender optic nerves. I prefer to see this movie as a love letter to Cuba by some brilliant (but undoubtedly naive) Soviet film makers. I Am Cuba is a cinephile's wet dream, a collage of Herculean feats of technical wizardry that would be easy to dismiss if it wasn't so humane. I Am Cuba Review By Norm Schrager At this writing (Novenber 2007), a just-released undercover poll of Cuban citizens reflects their unhappiness with … The Cuba it depicts may be an imagined one, but it's one we're continuing to imagine today. Since the film’s re-release in 1994, it has gone on to be remembered for its stylistic innovation and cinematic originality, despite its antiquated political message. As nearly as I can tell, this is all done in one unbroken take. Along with the scenes of evil Yankees and brave Castroites, there are astonishing helicopter shots of Cuban landscapes, and poetry and prose are read on the soundtrack (Columbus is quoted: "This is the most beautiful land ever seen by human eyes"). That film featured spectacular camera techniques, but they are upstaged by his opener in "I Am Cuba" and by some of the other sequences, which owe much to Fellini's influential "La Dolce Vita" (1960). The packaging says this is a new transfer from Russian vault elements. Sidney Poitier’s 7 Most Memorable Performances, All Harry Potter Movies Ranked Worst to Best by Tomatometer. The drinking song of bullying US sailors has a strange modern resonance: "The gals here in … Even its depravities and imperialist Yankee misbehavior seem quaint. The camera approaches a bar, and then follows a waitress as she delivers a drink to some tourists, after which one of the tourists stands up and walks into the pool - and the camera follows her, so that the shot ends with the camera actually underwater. Please enter your email address and we will email you a new password. It was directed by the veteran Russian filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov, then 61, whose "The Cranes are Flying" (1957) had won the Palme d'Or at Cannes a few years earlier. The script was co-authored by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, then the USSR's poetic superstar, and Enrique Pineda Barnet, a Cuban novelist. Many of the characters are stereotypes, but they are still sympathetic and real. If this sounds dull, then rest assured that the plot is minimal and, despite it's avowedly political purpose, hardly gets in the way of the film's main attractions today. Mikhail Kalatozov's astonishing portrait of Cuba transcends its propaganda origins and deserves a more prominent place in cinema history. The result is a technically astonishing mixture of optimistic Stalinist kitsch, agitprop and the epic Soviet style of the Twenties. There is a shot near the beginning of "I Am Cuba" that is one of the most astonishing I have ever seen. For the Soviet Union, the Cuban revolution was the shining example of socialism in action. Copyright © Fandango. Reflect that it was made in 1964, long before the days of lightweight cameras and Steadicams, and the shot is almost impossible to explain. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Most Cubans living on the island have never seen I am Cuba. Now, decades later, we are delighted to have been able to create a brand new 4K restoration of the film from original 35mm fine grain masters we purchased so long ago. What gives "I Am Cuba" such resonance, after all, isn't just that camera and those bodies in restless motion, but also the strange convergence of this nominal ideal with that alien accent. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. The Soviets fielded a first-class team of advisers to help in the production. Being suppressed by those who wanted [I Am Cuba] made in the first place is a vindication of sorts. TIMES STAFF WRITER. and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango. The storyline is much more sophisticated and innovative than has been given credit. A work of dazzling cinematographic invention that still has the ability to astound. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for I Am Cuba at Amazon.com. I Am Cuba is a gripping, if stylised, historical document. Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for I Am Cuba - Tomasito Cruz on AllMusic The movie, now in limited distribution before a video release, is of course dated in its politics. We see drunken American sailors chasing women through the streets, and follow the story of a hard-working peasant whose lands and home are snatched by the United Fruit Co. Rather than surrender his cane fields, he sets them afire. Sign up here. Finally, there is the appearance of a great revolutionary hero, a bearded man of the people who fights in the hills, is sheltered by peasants and represents Fidel Castro. All rights reserved. It begins on a rooftop deck of a luxury hotel in pre-Castro Havana. I Am Cuba movie reviews and ratings - Tribute.ca rating of 3.89 out of 5 Stars. Comments; Shares. Considering the power of the film today, it's hard to believe it fared poorly when audiences finally saw it. It is best enjoyed on the big screen. 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