Bitter Sugar
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DVD details
Actor: Mayte Vilan, Miguel Gutierrez Rene LavanDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Original Language); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-02-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: New Yorker
DVD Reviews of Bitter Sugar
DVD Review: What is the truth about Cuba?
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an extraordinary movie! The acting is wonderful and the photography is elegant. I love the wonderful use of black and white photography. As for the political dimension of the movie, I continue to wonder what the truth really is about Cuba. Though this movie portrays very well the difficult conflicts between individuality and conformity in a socialist state, as well as the limits of Cuban economic strategies, it left me wondering how it really is there. I sense the truth is somewhere between the extremes expressed in the reviews appearing on this site. Here's my biased shot at trying to see the truth about Cuba.
I admire all that has been accomplished in the past forty years in creating an autonomous Cuba where the basic standard of living today far surpasses what existed for the majority of Cubans before the revolution. Cuba and its people were massively exploited by U.S. business interests in the past and the history of U.S. government support of oppression there was terrible. I feel completely supportive of all Cuba did to wrest control of its economic assets, though I feel great compassion for Cubans who lost their homes and ways of life following the revolution. My view, however, is that the revolution was entirely justified. Cuba was as ripe as an environment could ever be for a revolution. A socialist agenda was the appropriate developmental strategy for Cuba, but the Marxist extremism of Guavara was naive and absurd.
Today Cuba has more doctors per capita than any country in the world, the literacy rate is virtually 100% and life expectancy is greater than the U.S., I understand. Clearly, though, a great price has been paid in terms of individual liberties, and the value I place on my freedom to be myself would prohibit me from living in such a society. Yet I admire the diminished status of consumerism in Cuba and the emphasis on social equality. Consumerism is the dominant religion in America and it is refreshing to experience in Cuba a society that isn't completely absorbed in material gain. On a visit to Havana last December, I was deeply moved by the warmth and generosity of the people I encountered, and I am profoundly impressed with the resiliency of the Cuban people.
The political and social justice reality of Cuba is difficult to know. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are very critical of Cuba from the perspective of American jurisprudence, yet in the context of Cuba's social objectives Cuba's treatment of its people is relatively benign in comparison to most countries in the world. It is obvious that the greatest crime one can commit in Cuba is to oppose the social revolution. But, what are the facts? Are people there systematically killed and mistreated? The demeanor of the Cuban people I encountered makes me question this claim.
The extreme animosity of the Cuban ex-patriot community makes their perspectives questionable for me. I sense there considerable projected hostility arising from guilt felt for leaving their homeland. Clearly, Cubans love their island. While Americans typically identify primarily with certain values on which our nation was created, especially individuality, Cubans seem different to the extent that they feel such great allegiance to the island itself. Can Cuba ever be out of the heart of a Cuban? This great feeling of allegiance to Cuba, the place, may be at the heart of both the commitment Cubans exhibit for their national revolution and the venomous hostility toward Castro felt by Cubans who came to America.
Cuba is a far cry from the kind of communist threat described during the paranoid 50's. I was surprised during my visit to see the great selection of political and philosophical books available in Cuban book stores and how easy it was to have serious political conversations with English speaking Cubans in Havana. I felt myself to be in a socialist environment, of course, but not a classical communist place and definitely not in the midst of a tyranny. The degree to which dissent is tolerated appears to vary, but even at its least lenient, Cuba feels relatively open. The music in Cuba is alive and extraordinarily dynamic. The Cuban people appear free to practice religion. We are far more judgmental about religious ritual in America than the Cuban government is. There is a spiritual vitality and individualism in the Cuban spirit which completely contradicts the essence of communism.
It was also evident to me that Castro is revered in Cuba, and it is obvious to me that he could not remain in power without broad popular support. Castro will likely be remembered historically as one of the greatest political fathers of our time, though he will be criticized, I imagine, for the limits of his imagination. His flaws eminate from the one-sidedness of his idealism. This is not an evil man, but rather a man wedded to his vision, and in the one-sided service of his vision he is capable of evil, as all men are. This is the same kind of one-sidedness we've seen in the conduct of corporate CEO's who disregard the welfare of their employees or workers in foreign subcontractor work environments for the sake of achieving their narrow business aims. Castro is far more benevolent than the typical, blind American corporate leader hell bent on making greater profits.
The movie captures the strange disparity for people who are unable to participate in the tourism related economy; that must be a tremendous undermining force for the revolution and for individual self-esteem. Self esteem has been one of the great achievements of the Cuban revolution.
Castro's greatest failure now may be squelching open discussion and involvement of Cuban youth in the future of Cuba. Cuba needs the imaginative energy of its youth to carry the country forward. The terrible conditions of pre-revolution Cuba have been relatively well addressed. What matters now for young Cubans is the future satisfaction of more individual needs. Castro seems stuck in a one-sided economic strategy that cries for reconsideration and thoughtful modification. At the same time, one must wonder whether Cuba would be better off culturally and spiritually if the American economic wall came down. What struck me the most in visiting Cuba was the general level of self esteem I felt I saw there. Walking the streets of Havana I saw people holding their heads high, making confident eye contact. I saw smiles everywhere, and an amazing, creative determination that made me question the lethargy and abiding dissatisfaction so observable in America. The headline in this week's Newsweek is about, "saying no to kids in an age of excess." The daily struggles in Cuba may be "better" for the spiritual health of Cubans than we might be inclined to assume. Without overly romantizing it, there is a lot to be said for suffering in life.
What is the truth about Cuba? All I really know of Cuba is what I saw in the faces and in the demeanor of the Cuban people I saw, and I loved what I saw. Above all, I want to see the U.S. keep its hands out of Cuban affairs and let the Cuban people determine their own future. There is nothing better for America to do than just let Cuba have its own destiny. I trust the Cuban soul.
Description of Bitter Sugar
In what may be the angriest portrait of Cuba ever made, director Leon Ichaso (Crossover Dreams) charts the journey of one young man from patriot to disillusioned dropout to angry rebel. Gustavo (René Lavan) is an idealistic young Marxist scholar who dreams of attending the University of Prague. When he falls for an earthy dancer with a more pragmatic view of her homeland, who plans to escape to Florida, his ideals are systematically chipped away in the face of poverty, repression, corruption, and police brutality until it all becomes too much for him to bear. A far cry from the more romantic work of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (Strawberry and Chocolate), this film speaks volumes about a generation of exiles burning with anger and hate for Castro and his regime. It's also manipulative and heavy-handed, with Gustavo less a hero than a straw figure poised for a fall, and it's far less revealing than such self-critical Cuban features as Portrait of Teresa and Memories of Underdevelopment. But its vivid and passionate feelings of betrayal can hardly be dismissed. Ichaso shot portions of the film in Cuba and smuggled the footage out, but Santo Domingo doubles for Havana through the bulk of the feature. --Sean AxmakerBestsellers in DVD
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