A work of dazzling cinematographic invention that still has the ability to astound.
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
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Release:
Jan 4, 2000
Reviews for I Am Cuba
Politics, propaganda and poetry are whipped into an exotic cinematic cocktail in Mikhail Kalatozov's delirious tribute to the Cuban revolution...
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.
This loony, quasi-masterpiece is one of the great jagged edges of film history.
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
a chest-thumping source of pride for the Soviet government, full of inciting imagery, enormous filmmaking prowess and the flavor of revolution
Considering the power of the film today, it’s hard to believe it fared poorly when audiences finally saw it.
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.
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.
The result is a technically astonishing mixture of optimistic Stalinist kitsch, agitprop and the epic Soviet style of the Twenties.
Politically naïve maybe, but it works beautifully as straight cinema.
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.
Cinema’s singular dream, so often betrayed elsewhere, is to deliver such visions as this.
It is one of the most visually hypnotic films ever -- and that's not hyperbole.
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.
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.
Propaganda that transcends its own numbskull earnestness... When it connects, it's as poweful as anything you've ever seen.
The film fails to convince in its propaganda, but as a goofy view of a new Cuba it is heartily appreciated.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
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| 98% 98% | Up |
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 36% 36% | Angels & Demons |
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| 25% 25% | Four Christmases |
| 45% 45% | Shorts |
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