Yo Soy Cuba

Mikhail Kalatozov premiered his film Yo Soy Cuba in 1964 only to have it forgotten for the next thirty years. But its innovative film techniques would lead to its revival in towards the end of the century. The film has beautiful shots of Cuba and incorporates a variety of film angles such as bird’s eye view, worm’s eye view, long shots, and close-ups that are used interchangeably.

Following in footsteps of Eisenstein, Yo Soy Cuba has a distinct form of narration. It is divided into four stories. The film begins with the story of Maria, a young Cuban in the pre-revolution period. The second story is of a Cuban sugar farmer who upon learning that the competition from an American company will run him out of business, lights his sugar cane on fire. The third and fourth stories are set during the revolution and follow the lives of Enrique, a student in favor of the Castro regime, and Mariano, a farmer who joins the revolution.

The first story displays the gap in social hierarchy in Cuba. Initially, there are scenes of the people that live in huts, then it moves to a thriving party at the pinnacle of civilization. The audience sees wealth. In fact, Cuba was not performing too badly economically. Just before the revolution, Cuba was one of the most developed Latin American countries, and it held a high GDP and GDP per capita (Eckstein 503). Of the countries of Latin America, it had a high standard of living.  It had a heavily capitalized way of life due to the major role of the United States. Cuba held the second largest amount of American investment (503). Consequently, Cuba relied much on trade. As the American that Maria bags leaves, her neighborhood is far from the luxuries of the city. This shows the wide gap of living standards. Even though on paper Cuba looked prosperous, it was still a poor country. American capitalism is seen as an enemy around this time in Latin America. Also occurring in this time is that Marxism is seen as a solution for decolonization around the world (Chasteen 264). In the second story, although another Cuban farmer is the face of the competition, the rival company is still an American powerhouse. Because of people like Che Guevara, who blame Latin American poverty on “imperialist international economic system of awesome power,” countries turned to Communism (265). Although more influenced by Marxism than Communism, Castro found an ally in the Soviet Union. Under Castro, the nation would see one of the most impressive redistributions of land and wealth (518). He was able to boast of an impressive land reform, universal healthcare and primary school education (518). However, trade relations with the United States made Cuba into a trade vulnerable nation (511). The US was an enemy not only to Cuba but any place where Marxism and Communism existed.

Castro envisioned and promised a different Cuba. Even though he had setbacks overtime, he managed to keep his word. This is what compelled people like Enrique and Mariano to join the change. The message of Soviet director Kalatozov was that every Cuban regardless of social standing or race could be united for a better cause. Communist ideology promotes a classless and race less society. In the late Seventies, Cuba claimed a decline in racial inequality, consequently using racism to discredit the US social order where race was still a big issue (Fuente 61). The four stories tell very different stories of four very different people but at the end of each story, the narrating voice always states, “Yo Soy Cuba.”

Que Viva Mexico

Sergei M. Eisenstein was an extraordinary Russian director famous for films such as Battleship Potemkin and October. These films were patriotic films, consequently it was established that he could recreate a Russian atmosphere in his films. In 1930, he began work on Que Viva Mexico!, a montage of Mexico’s history and prospective future. How would he translate his passion into a patriotic Mexican film? As a foreigner, he had several limitations, but he managed to make this historical masterpiece by incorporating unconventional film styles. His vision captured a unified Mexico and a patriotic Mexican heritage.

Eisenstein never finished his masterpiece due to political reasons. It is possible that no one will see his true completed vision. But what remained convey his purpose- to use montage to expose the relations between the political and personal individual (Robe 18). The film is divided into six episodes, each chronologically representing a history of the people of Mexico.

In the first episode, begins with untouched Mexico lands by European settlers. It is praised because of its narrative montage which has scenes focused on pyramids (Hart 3). The second episode is of a matriarchal society, in which Eisenstein uses visual rhyming; the scene with the image of the necklace is following by a scene of a man in a hammock (3). The third scene, fiesta, displays cultural town life.  The fourth episode, Maguey is closest to classical Hollywood conventions. The fifth, Soldadera, was not shot by Eisenstein (3). The sixth, Day of the Dead, leaves the viewer with a healthy, prospective Mexican future.

His main purpose is exemplified in each episode. The first displays indigenous lifestyle untainted, uninfluenced by the Europeans.  Politically, Techuantepec is a matriarchal society. He shows, using the graphic montage to show how it affects members of the community. Eisenstein then uses the next episode to the show the integrated life of European and indigenous life. The fiesta episode shows a religious ceremony dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Robe implies that it may seem like European assimilation, but there a strong possibility that the townspeople may be worshipping pagan idols. Maguey displays political oppression at the local level by killing off the future of Mexico. He tells this story in an ideational montage. Soldadera and Day of the Dead are tied together because they represent a changing Mexican identity. The unmasking of festival participants, some are skeletons which represent the elite Europeans, while some are young mestizos, who Sergei believed where the future of Mexico. Sergei’s vision was the belief of a “unified artistic vision” of Mexico and belief that the future was in hands of Mexico (4). But his true vision would not be collected until the remaining footage was reconstructed by Grigory Alexandrov (3). The world was not allowed to see his vision, because the Hollywood chose capital rather than art (29). Another factor was that Eisenstein fell out with its financial backer, Upton Sinclair, who would not let Eisenstien edit the material after he left for Russia. An abridgement of Que Viva Mexico! was released under Upton Sinclair; titled Thunder Over Mexico, it was only a segment of Eisenstien’s great vision of Mexico.

Gabriela

Gabriela is a story of seductive young Brazilian who finds love in Nacib, a bar owner in 1920s Brazil. It has all the contents of a soap opera- love, betrayal, murder, and a happy ending. The lives of those characters seem so ridiculous to actually occur; yet in Gabriela, the lives of those characters represent a segment of actual Brazilian life.

The film opens up with the murder of a married woman and her lover. The bar owner did not go to the police but kept it to himself. He did not discuss the issue until he was at the bar amongst the prominent men of the town. They were not alarmed but, nonchalantly, the act itself served as daily gossip. In Brazil, this was a normal occurrence. The film itself was predominantly from a male perspective. The audience learned everything through the discussions at the bar where the town’s most prominent men gathered. The message there is that it’s a traditional man’s world, and this was the way real Brazilians lived their lives. The women were traditionally responsible for raising the family and instilling moral values in society (Caulfield 153).

But from around 1910 to 1940, social roles in Brazil began to change due to the concern of wife killing (Besse 653). It was the job and duty of women to maintain a virtuous lifestyle and family. Because the national interest in these crimes of passion, the blame had to be on the women who had failed to do their job. Failure of providing a morally sound ambience, they caused the violence of men (152).

Vida Policial, a Brazilian magazine, described a chain reaction, the women fail to instill moral values. The female children become promiscuous, and the male children are seduced to produce “degenerate offspring,” inevitably leading to the nation’s ruin (154). In order to present an industrialized nation, they called on men to “police their women” (159). After all, men had a legal right to kill their wife her and her suitor (653). But the movement to civilize Brazilian life led to the protection of women (654). Eventually, wife killing was no longer a right but a crime and was seen as barbaric (660).

In this time, there are conflicts of two ideologies that contain sentiments of a traditional past versus the futuristic idea of a civilized society. In the film, the male and female protagonist fall madly in love and enjoy their time unmarried. She is reluctant to get married, which rebels against the idea of a modern Brazil But due to societal pressures, they marry.  By marrying Nacib, Gabriela becomes valuable property that should not be touched by anyone. Once again, affirming the idea that it is patriarchal, traditional society. However, Gabriela represents the modern Brazilian woman who finds power in her own rebellious nature. She refuses to remain in her shoes and escapes to the circus after a “civilized” poetry reading. She is not traditional by any means. Her rebellion to the monotonous ways of marriage propels her to cheat on Nacib. He also does not follow societal pressures by not killing Gabriela or Tonico.

Ultimately, they remain together but only as couple in love, not as a married couple.

Camila

Why was a romantic tragedy film so successful? Camila (1984) managed to tug the hearts of not only Argentinean audiences but also worldwide audiences, leading to an Oscar nomination. One of the most important features of studying history is being able to recognizing the past and connecting it the present. What audiences in Argentina felt was the similarity between the oppressive government regime then and their own experiences with the military regime. Camila is about a young socialite who elopes with a priest during the struggle between Unitarians and Federalists in 19^th century Argentina. Immediately, there are three conflicts that will keep these two lovers apart. Being a socialite implies that she comes from a prestigious family with a traditional male breadwinner. The second taboo is that her lover is priest, a man that has made a pact of celibacy. Lastly, the political conflict that ultimately resolved itself with the triumph of the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, end the journey of these lovers.  Thus, their love fights all forms of paternalistic order- family, church, and state (Stevens).

Maria Luisa Bemberg co-wrote and directed the film. She hardly had to alter any events from the actual story. But what made it successful was Bemberg’s strong presence in the film. It is predominantly resonated in Camila’s personality. Bemberg, a feminist, makes Camila an assertive woman who knows what she wants (Stevens).  Bemberg’s interpretation of this story is essentially that Camila’s independent nature carried her romantic journey against her patriarchal surroundings. Knowing Camila’s personality, the audience notices that Ladislao and Camila’s love is not black and white. Stephen Hart notes that they have each have a view of love that differs from each other, which produces a problem in their relationship.  Their feeling of love is the same because they both consent to eloping. However, their different views of love prevent them from eloping again once they are discovered. Camila’s view of love comes from a rebellious, romanticized way of life, whereas Ladislao has made a pact to the church and God, to dedicate his entire being to a life of servitude. Once they eloped, Camila is living her romantic vision, however, Ladislao is continuous tormented. Is he immediately discard his pact that was, until that point, his life? Bemberg makes Camila’s love stronger to demonstrate that she is the cause of their journey. Therefore, Camila’s defiance in a patriarchal society makes it more offensive to the forms of the order. Were the leaders more upset that it was morally wrong in the eyes of God? Or were they attempting to protect the image of a patriarchal society?

In colonial Latin America, there is this ideology that constitutes the entirety of political life. It is that legitimacy of the state is from God (Dore). Those that ruled the state were the men with wealth and professional status (Dore). But in Camila, even they have to subject to the rules of Rosas. Rosas was born into a wealthy and professional family, but he ran away and became a gaucho. Ironically, with an occupation of the subordinate class, he managed to become ruler of the exploiting classes. But to Rosas, the “true crime” that they committed was defying him, not the church or their families (Stevens). In the film, it is Camila who seduces the priest; therefore she has defied the state, her family, and the church.