Source Seatle Pi
URL Link
Date May 19, 2006
Andy Garcia's love letter to pre-revolution Havana
has every earmark of an ambitious actor's dream project.
Rich with texture and drunk with music (much of it
composed by Garcia), it's full of characters with import
more symbolic than dramatic (Bill Murray plays a
veritable court jester), ideas that wander and
contradictions that dissipate.
Written by Cuban expatriate novelist G. Cabrera Infante,
the sprawling film views the social and political change
from the elevated gaze of "apolitical" nightclub owner
Fico Fellove (Garcia). Part of Cuba's privileged class,
he sees his family brought low and his dreams (namely
his glitzy club that caters to local celebrities and
rich tourists) torn down by the revolution. When the
revolution "seduces" the love of his life (Inés Sastre),
it becomes downright personal.
Like so many films about Cuba, it is fascinatingly
ambivalent. While it celebrates the revolution as a
triumph over the corrupt rule of a decadent dictator and
exploitation by American businessmen and gangsters, it
gives no more than lip service to the poverty and
discontent in Cuba under the preening Batista.
Meanwhile, it casts a nostalgic glow over Garcia's "lost
city" of Havana, shown solely as a playground of the
privileged. Is it a coincidence there is no single
working-class Cuban or impoverished peasant among the
leading characters? That would tarnish that nostalgic
luster.
Some of the confusion suggests the unresolved emotions
of someone working out their mixed feelings through the
film and, to his credit, Garcia lends a dignity to those
who join Castro in the cause of social reform and
economic justice. But for all the color and lively
music, it's an overlong, messy labor of love built on a
sense of personal betrayal that rings hollow.