Calling themselves "El Cartel," a trio of underground rappers in Cuba struggle to get their music heard while bypassing the official government-sanctioned music industry. Growing by word of mouth thanks to their electrifying performances, they put all of their energy into creating a music festival, even as government officials and Hurricane Charley close in.
If you thought that the Buena Vista Social Club was all that needed to be said about Cuban music, now there's East of Havana, which is about the Cuba rap scene.
The film makes an ironic point about Cuba: This is a land where the grandparents are revolutionaries (or at least say they are) but the kids are yearning for capitalist globalization.
This alternately meditative and emotive documentary uses three Havana rappers as a vehicle in which to explore the struggles and frustrations of young Cubans surviving amid a crumbling revolution.
East of Havana sets individual stories against the bitter, resilient landscape of Cuba's political history. For the youth in the film, music doesn't just have a purpose, it is a purpose, and the artists find in hip-hop a 'mental freedom.'
East of Havana, at its best, extols the Cuban hip-hop artist's sense of community and insistence on being heard through the rhetoric of Castro's revolution.
Visually striking (particularly the opening and end titles sequences), the film reveals the everyday lives of everyday people, both where and how they live.
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