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Movies / On DVD / I Am Cuba
I Am Cuba

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I Am Cuba (1964)

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Reviews Counted: 31

Fresh: 31

Rotten:0

Average Rating: 8.6/10

Runtime: 3 hrs 20 mins

Genre: Foreign Films

Synopsis: This Russian-made study of Cuba, partially written by renowned poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, captures the island just before it made the transition to a post-revolutionary society. Moving from city to... This Russian-made study of Cuba, partially written by renowned poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, captures the island just before it made the transition to a post-revolutionary society. Moving from city to country and back again, I AM CUBA examines the various problems caused by political oppression as well as by great discrepancies in wealth and power. Beginning in Havana in the pre-Castro era, we see how foreigners contributed to the city's prostitution and poverty; this sequence features dreamy, hallucinogenic camera work that creates a feeling of unease and dislocation. Then, in glorious images of palm tress and fertile land, the film looks at the sugar cane fields in the countryside, and the difficulties faced by peasants working the land. Finally, back in the city again, leftist students battle the police and a corrupt government--and pay a high price for their rebellion. [More]

Starring: Jean Bouise

Starring: Jean Bouise

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
Screenwriter: Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Enrique Pineda Barnet
Composer: Carlos Farinas

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Jan 4, 2000

[DVD Details]
 
 
  • A most acclaimed discovery, "I am Cuba" will change your view of cinema forever! Filmed by great Russian director Mikhail Kalatozov (The Cranes are Flying), "I am Cuba" is an epic poem to Communist kitsch--a whirling, feverish dance through the sensuous decadence of Battista's Havana and the grinding poverty and oppression of the Cuban people. Presented jointly by master directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, "I am Cuba" has received universal acclaim and admiration from around the world as a true classic of world cinema.
  • Source: Image Entertainment, Inc.
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    Reviews for I Am Cuba

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    1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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    A work of dazzling cinematographic invention that still has the ability to astound.

    Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
    04/20/09
    Anthony Holden
    Channel 4 Film

    Politics, propaganda and poetry are whipped into an exotic cinematic cocktail in Mikhail Kalatozov's delirious tribute to the Cuban revolution...

    Full Review Source: Turner Classic Movies Online | comment Comment
    02/05/08
    Sean Axmaker
    Turner Classic Movies Online

    Being suppressed by those who wanted [I Am Cuba] made in the first place is a vindication of sorts. Mere propaganda only reinforces the status quo. True art is revolutionary.

    Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
    12/12/07
    Chris Barsanti
    PopMatters

    This loony, quasi-masterpiece is one of the great jagged edges of film history.

    Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
    11/29/07
    Jeffrey M. Anderson
    Combustible Celluloid

    visual impressions that will forever remain embedded in your mind's eye%u2014just as much as Picasso's La Guernica communicates the horrors of war

    Full Review Source: Old School Reviews | comment Comment
    11/23/07
    John A. Nesbit
    Old School Reviews

    a chest-thumping source of pride for the Soviet government, full of inciting imagery, enormous filmmaking prowess and the flavor of revolution

    Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
    11/20/07
    Norm Schrager
    Filmcritic.com

    Considering the power of the film today, it’s hard to believe it fared poorly when audiences finally saw it.

    Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
    11/19/07
    Dan Lybarger
    eFilmCritic.com

    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.

    Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
    11/17/07
    Ed Gonzalez
    Slant Magazine

    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.

    Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
    09/17/07
    Jonathan Rosenbaum
    Chicago Reader
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    The result is a technically astonishing mixture of optimistic Stalinist kitsch, agitprop and the epic Soviet style of the Twenties.

    Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
    01/27/07
    Philip French
    Observer [UK]

    Politically naïve maybe, but it works beautifully as straight cinema.

    Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
    12/30/06
    David Parkinson
    Empire Magazine

    The film is immensely entertaining and occasionally inspiring, a delirious combination of Slavic solemnity, Latin exoticism, Communist idealism and breathtakingly beautiful images. It is best enjoyed on the big screen.

    Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
    08/29/06
    TV Guide's Movie Guide

    Cinema’s singular dream, so often betrayed elsewhere, is to deliver such visions as this.

    Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
    02/09/06
    Time Out

    It is one of the most visually hypnotic films ever -- and that's not hyperbole.

    Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
    09/30/05
    G. Allen Johnson
    San Francisco Chronicle
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    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.

    Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
    09/13/05
    Michael Atkinson
    Village Voice
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    No review available.

    comment Comment
    07/06/05
    Emanuel Levy
    EmanuelLevy.Com

    It is a dream of life in which everything is reduced to black and white. Or as the rhetoric used to go, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Nothing was ever quite that simple.

    Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
    01/15/05
    Stephen Holden
    New York Times
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Propaganda that transcends its own numbskull earnestness... When it connects, it's as poweful as anything you've ever seen.

    Full Review Source: F5 (Wichita, KS) | comment Comment
    06/26/04
    Jake Euker
    F5 (Wichita, KS)

    The film fails to convince in its propaganda, but as a goofy view of a new Cuba it is heartily appreciated.

    Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
    01/27/04
    Dennis Schwartz
    Ozus' World Movie Reviews

    No review available.

    comment Comment
    03/03/03
    Brandon Judell
    PopcornQ
     
     
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