Seguridad (2024) Hot Docs

Tamara Segura tries to un ravel her complicated relationship with her abusive father and the country she left behind, Cuba.

This is one of those films that seems to be one thing and then opens up into something larger. Segura’s tale about trying to connect to her father becomes a journey through her family’s history, what made her father become abusive, an exploration of the Cuban revolution, what it means to leave your home country and a few other things. It’s a film that wonderfully is opening doors every couple of minutes, with the result the film makes our eyes go wide as we are brought into a seeming never ending tale.

This is a great film.  It’s wonderfully curated ride through a the life of not only the director but her family and the country of her birth. It is a film that also transcends being just one person’s story, but one that we all can see ourselves in. Something somewhere in this tale is almost certain to click with you.

One of the best films at Hot Docs, it’s also one of the great finds of 2024.

Highly recommended.

DOC NYC Capsules: LAZARO AND THE SHARK: CUBA UNDER THE SURFACE and IN SEARCH OF BEGALI HARLEM

Lazaro and The Shark: Cuba Under the Surface
Portrait of Cuba and Lazaro’s efforts to put together a crew to participate I the July Carnival with an eye toward winning the gran prize and defeating the Shark and his crew. Vibrant and lively documentary will show you the spirit of the Cuban people as well as the poverty they live in. I enjoyed the hell out this film largely because I loved the music and the people. Definitely worth a look.

In Search of Bengali Harlem
This is just a pointer  to the film. I say that not because the film is bad, but rather because this film so so good and so full material that I need to see the film a second time. Normally I would happily watch this film again but the crush of films at DOC NYC is so great I would have to trade off not seeing another film, and I don't want to do that because this film is so good it will show up down the road when I can revisit it.

This is an excellent look at a part of New York society that we really don’t normally look at namely the ethnic spectrum of a part of a city. In this case the film is a look at the Bengali Muslims who moved to New York and became part of the fabric of Harlem. They inter-married and to some degree disappeared into the notion of Harlem being all African American. The film also looks at the other groups who were part of Harlem.

There is a hell of a story here and a lot to unpack and frankly I need to see this film to do it justice. Until then- just see it since this is one of the must sees of the fest.

LOS ULTIMOS FRIKIS (2019) Vimeo On-Demand Sept 2nd and Topic Sept 16th

Portrait of the long running Cuban heavy metal group Zeus. 

While the thought of another heavy metal biography may not thrill you perhaps if I told you that the group lives in Cuba may pique your interest. Telling the story of the group in their own words we get the tale of a group of guys who loved rock and roll and never stopped paying the music they loved. Along the way they went from political prisoners to cultural heroes. It’s a long strange trip told by a bunch of charming guys who had them not been in Cuba might have been worldwide mega stars. 

To be honest as good as the film is, and as charming as the people occupying the film are, the film has one major problem, there simply isn’t enough music. Yes we get some music all the way through, but we only really get at the start and end. While what we hear is great rock and roll the lack of music kind of is head scratcher in that this is supposed to be about a band- and we should hear more of what one would think is the reason the film was made.

Los Hermanos/The Brothers (2020) DOC NYC 2020

 

This wonderful film is about brothers Ilmar and Aldo López-Gavilán. Born in 1970's Cuba thy both took differing musical paths. Ilmar was sent to Moscow to study violin when his teachers realized he was a greater talent then they could handle. He never lived in Cuba again, ending up in the United States. Aldo remained in Cuba becoming a classical and jazz pianist. While the brother always managed to stay in touch and see each other, they never had the chance to perform together....

I had been getting emails about LOS HERMANOS for a couple of weeks before it was announced at DOC NYC. It was going to be playing a couple of festivals and I kind of pushed it aside. Even when I had access to it at Globe Docs I passed over it for other films. That was a mistake on my part because this is great little documentary about music and family and how music can keep a family connected. THat last part resonated with me since in the last few weeks since the passing of my dad the music that has passed between my brothers and myself have kept us connected.

There is so much to say about the film, from how it is a portrait of two guys you'll want to hang out with, to the great music, to the sense that you are really hanging out with them as they tell their story. However I want to just mention that while all of that is good what you'll remember is the small moments. For me the one moment that I will always carry with me is the one where Ilmar talks about getting audio cassettes from his brother playing music. While he loved the music, the thing that made them special to him was the background sounds, people talking, of walking by, of the sounds of home that he missed. I love how he mentions how that kept him connected to "home".

I was moved and delighted and you will be too.

Highly recommended the film can be streamed at DOCNYC.net

Epicentro (2020)

Hubert Sauper's EPICENTRO is a look at the history of Cuba since the bombing of the Maine, the use of cinema as propaganda, the people of Cuba (particularly the children) and the future of the island nation.

More a kind of free form essay mediation on the various subjects then straightforward narrative documentary EPICENTRO was a film that worked for me in moments more than as a whole. While nothing in the film is bad or out of place, I'm not certain that Sauper connects everything together emotionally. I kept waiting for an ah ha moment that never seemed to come. The result is a film that I really don't know how to describe or talk about.

In some ways not being able to talk about the film is good in that it forces me to say without reservation that you should see it and experience it for yourself, but at the same time I really can't tell you why. Yes it looks good. Yes it profiles some intriguing people. But beyond that I really can't explain why you should see the film, except, perhaps in that it does give you a real sense of the people and the physical place that is Cuba.

A one of a kind film EPICENTRO is worth a look.

Nate Hood's 400 Words on THE WASP NETWORK (2019) NYFF 2019

In her 1964 essay “Zeigeist and Poltergeist; Or, Are Movies Going to Pieces?” critic Pauline Kael lamented the growing trend among foreign art house movies for narratives that favored “structural disintegration” and, even worse, the newfound expectation among American audiences that jumbled storytelling was de rigueur among “serious” film artists. She recalled one incident during a screening of Ingmar Bergman’s Brink of Life (1958) where the projectionist accidentally mixed up the film reels and played them out of order. When she confronted the theater manager he’d scoffed and said that he’d “been playing the film for two weeks and I was his first patron who wasn’t familiar with Bergman’s methods.”

One can’t help but feel similarly frustrated with the frequently decentralized storytelling in Olivier Assayas’ Wasp Network, a film where it feels like not just the reels, but individual scenes were assembled out of order. An ambitious exploration of a real life Cuban intelligence ring that infiltrated the Cuban exile community in south Florida in the late nineties, the film seeks the same sprawling breadth of his 2010 miniseries Carlos about Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal. But what Assayas did with that film in five and half hours he attempts here in Wasp Network in only two, resulting in an alternatively languid and rushed mess.

Though Assayas is frequently at his best when he limits his perspective to a single character wandering through a strange environment—Maggie Cheung or Kristen Stewart navigating the bizarre worlds of Parisian cinema and high fashion—he’s admirably managed ensemble cast films before. But here he collapses under the strain. Consider the first half of the film where each reel is devoted to an individual agent fleeing Cuba for the states, their stories all feeling like unrelated short films. We don’t even know they’re double agents until a jarring montage in the middle of the film where Assayas bucks his measured storytelling for a getting-the-crew-together montage set to a pop song that feels like a drive-by Scorsese-ing. Even after this Assayas refuses to explore the interiors of his characters: why are they spies?; why do they abandon their families? The film only works when it focuses on the people trapped in the middle of the Cuba/US espionage battle, mainly Penélope Cruz as the wife of one of the operatives. It seems Assayas chose the wrong ensemble to focus on.

Rating: 4/10

The Wasp Network (2019) NYFF 2019

I love Olivier Assayas but the programmers of the New York Film Festival need to stop taking pretty much everything that he does as a Main Slate title. I think every film he's made except one in the last 10 years has been on the Main Slate. In most cases that's been good, but there have been a couple that they should have passed on, particularly this years THE WASP NETWORK.

The story of a bunch of Cuban "defectors" who are were really spies for Castro is, on the face of it a good one. The trouble is that the story is told so haphazardly that it's hard to follow. Until about half way in, when it's revealed the defectors are in fact spies the plot almost is pure murk. I honestly had no idea what was going on and just went with it because I figured it would sort itself out.

It kind of did, but then I realized that outside of the Penelope Cruz character there are no characters just cut outs being moved around. Frankly at no point anywhere in this does anyone, outside of the infant in the last couple of minutes, have real characteristics. These aren't people, these are puppets. The fact that there are no characters is really odd because even when Assayas's earlier films didn't work you at least had real people wandering through. Here there is nothing.

I think part of the problem is that this story is way two big for a film that's just over two and a quarter hours. This should have been a mini-series because there are too many people doing too many things for such a short period of time. We never get a sense of what anyone is really doing, they are just in places at certain times.

The one shining light in the film is the aforementioned infant, who, according to Assayas and Penelope Cruz after the NYFF press screening, was a natural actor. The baby simply fell in love the the actors and just gushed for the. She is so good she deserves an Oscar.(no really-see the film and you'll agree).

Baby aside this is a major miss from a great director.

Campesino (2018) Chain Film Festival

When you see CAMPESINO (notice I say when and not should or if) try to do so on the biggest and best screen you can. It’s not that this documentary on photographer Carl Oelerich and his documenting the life of the Campesino farmers in Cuba won’t work on say a cellphone, but rather you’ll want to see Oelerich‘s photographs as big and as perfect as possible. As much as I was enjoying the film, which follows Oelerich as he takes photos and takes about his life and the life of his subjects –it was when the film suddenly inserts one of the black and white photos – is taking that I audibly would gasp.

I don’t really have much to say about CAMPESINO other than just see it.There are some truly glorious moments you must see.  I say this as someone who came to the film kind of ass-backwards. I kind of half-heartedly asked the Chain Film festival for a screener for the film because it was on photography and it kind of looked interesting and I wanted to add another film…and then I started it and it was okay until moments later I was in this place with these people and my socks were blown off and my mouth was hanging open with this glorious sense of place and time, not to mention all these wonderful people who just worked their way into my heart.

I think the technical term is WOW.

A small gem of a film that has some wonderful moments and people CAMPESIO is very recommended.

For tickets and more information go here.

Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2018: VOICES OF THE SEA

Portrait of Mariela and her husband Pita who live is a small village on the coast of Cuba with their four children. They lead a hard scrabble existence fishing. She want to leave and travel to America however her husband is reluctant to do so. When neighbors leave for America tension develops between the pair.

Sweet little film is a good portrait of a couple looking for a better life. It is one of the very rare films that I've run across that really put us into present day Cuba.  It is a film that will make you truly understand what is like to live in the country that seems to floundering in existence.

On top of everything else the film is stunningly beautiful. This is an absolutely gorgeous film where every image is one you'll want to hang on the wall. While it looks good, it is perhaps a little too good since it makes Cuba a lace you want to go to not flee from.

VOICES OF THE SEA plays June 15 and 17. For tickets and more information go here.

In Brief: Give Me Future (2017) Greenwich International FIlm Festival 2017

Dual portrait of the band Major Lazer and the youth of Cuba who came to to the March 2016 the band gave after the opening up of relations between the US and Cuba.

Best seen big and loud for the driving music and sense of scale (almost a half a million people showed up to the concert) GIVE ME FUTURE is wonderful portrait of the ability of music to bridge culture. Its from the start everyone in Cuba knows who the the band is despite the American media's portrayal of Cuba as a third world republic stuck in time. I shouldn't have been surprised in today's interconnected world but its still a little surprising to see the crowds singing along and moving in anticipation of the beat changes.

While the film occasionally suffers from trying to follow too many threads, I found that the sheer exuberance of everyone involved from the performers to the fans smoothed over the rough edges.I really like the film a great deal to the point I'm hoping it shows up closer to me so that I can see this on a truly huge screen.

If you like the music this is a must see.

GIVE ME FUTURE plays Friday June 2 and Saturday June 3 at The Greenwich International Film Festival. For more information and tickets go here.

Joe Bendel on Patria o Muerte: The Fatherland, as it is

If there is one country that has less faith in the Communist Party than China, it would have to be Cuba. They have all of the social inequities associated with China’s extreme income disparity, but the exploitation is seemingly reserved exclusively for foreign tourists. Of course, it is not like Cubans haven’t had revolutionary theory explained to them. For decades, they have endured Fidel Castro’s interminable speeches. Those diatribes produced the hollow slogan adopted as the ironic title of Olatz López Garmendia’s revealing documentary Patria o Muerte, executive produced by Julian Schnabel, which premieres this coming Monday on HBO.

Strictly speaking, Garmendia (second wife of Schnabel, who directed her in Before Night Falls) takes the observational approach, observing many average Havanans in their homes and listening to their complaints. However, her desperately poor subjects have so much to say and their situations are so precarious, the film never feels like a Wisemanesque fly-on-the-wall experience. Very few of them even bothers talking about freedom anymore. That is long gone. Their thoughts are solely concerned with day-to-day, hour-to-hour survival.

We meet Mercedes, whose family risks their lives every day just by living in their (literally) crumbling building. They know it is only a matter of time before it collapses (her son was already hospitalized by a floor cave-in), but they have no other place to go. A thirty-eight-year-old street vendor would understand. He says he feels like a teenager because he still lives with his parents, but there is no chance he could find or afford his own apartment given his circumstances.

Occasionally, some Havanans express frustration with the lack of intellectual and artistic freedom, such as Yoani Sanchez and Renaldo Escobar, dissident bloggers in a country that forbids the internet. However, for average Cubans, it is more a matter of being denied one of the most convenient tools of the Twenty-First Century.

Anyone who stills thinks Obama’s overtures to the Castro regime will materially improve their lot should be quickly disabused by the work of Garmendia and her crew, particularly cinematographer Claudio Fuentes Madan, who is seen getting arrested (violently) for protesting on the day of Obama’s state visit. He also does nice work behind the camera, evocatively framing each interviewee and their [barely]-living spaces. Through his lens, we get a visceral sense of just how oppressive life in Cuba really is—for all but the Party pinnacle of privilege.

Patria o Muerte does not white-wash or sugar coat any of its subjects’ reality. Yet, it is not a spirit-crushing viewing experience, in part due to its eclectic but very upbeat Cuban soundtrack (even including old school Benny More). It just serves up one harsh dose of truth after another, but it washes it down with some rich Afro-Cuban derived or inspired rhythms. In fact, there is an elusive, haunted and decrepit beauty to the city and its people that comes out clearly in every frame of the one-hour film. Very highly recommended, Patria o Muerte: Cuba, Fatherland or Death debuts this coming Monday (11/28) and hits HBO On Demand the next day.

Sundance 2016: VIVA (2014) plus some reports of films we've already seen

Jesus is a a gay young man working as a hairdresser. He also spends time doing the hair in a drag club. Jesus would like nothing better than perform himself. One night when Jesus performs he finds that his father, just out from prison is in the audience. He father slugs him.  His father then works his way back into his son's life moving into his apartment and trying to reconnect with Jesus, despite not approving of his son's sexual orientation nor life style.

Melodramatic and predicable turns of the plot are easily wiped aside by a cast that hits every note dead on perfect. We are moved by the characters and their plight because the actors manage to sell the story beyond what the script deserves. Because of the cast the film has a real lived in feel. I don't know when I've seen a cast this good in the last five or ten years.

I really liked this film a great deal. It's one of those films that will move you deeply and by the time the end credits roll have you wiping tears from your eyes from it's bittersweetness.

The film is playing at Sundance Friday Saturday and Monday and is a must see. (Ticket info here)

I'm told the film has been picked up by Magnolia for US release and I'm expecting a big release and a long life.
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Also playing at Sundance are some films which we saw back at the New York Film Festival this past October:
Cemetery of Splendor
Maggie's Plan
Miles Ahead
The Lobster

I should mention that I'm hoping to get some on the ground reports as well as reviews up once things happen. Keep checking back because some wonderful things may happen

A rambling piece trying to work out 13 Million Voices (2015) DOC NYC 2015

A look at the 2009 concert PEACE WITHOUT BORDERS that was held in Cuba. The film follows the run up to the show and what followed. The film also tries to explain how Cuba is seen by people in the country and by exiles.

You can tell that I am very mixed about the film in that I am running the review after it screened at DOC NYC, and after the festival. While I like the music in the film I'm not sure about anything else with it. Part of the problem is the film is  choppy in the editing, especially in the early part of the film where we jump through several years of time depending on what the film wants to get across. The result is a film that for me is very hard to completely get a grasp on.

I'm also feeling adrift about what the film is really about. The film is very much against the lack of freedom of expression in Cuba, but at the same time the concert happened...

You have to excuse me because the film is this really weird  mix of being in love with Cuba and hating portions of it. Its a film that seems to have been shaped by exiles and their families and yet some of what we see isn't the complete anti- Castro Cuba...

Its kind of like the film has some sort of agenda but doesn't really know what it all is. Part of it is the editing, part of it is I don't think the people who made the film have a real handle on what they want to say. I mean they are nominally telling the story of the concert  but there is all this other stuff in there.

I know I'm not making sense. The problem is that recently I've seen a bunch of films about Cuba and expression there be it art (ALUMBRONES) or cars (HAVANA MOTOR CLUB) which paint a differing picture of the country. I'm not sure what to think is the real story.

Actually I'm not sure what the story is of this film either- I've thought about and I really don't know. I know that may inspire hate mail, or people screaming I don't get it-and that maybe true- but if so please leave a comment and tell me what I'm not getting because frankly I'd really like to know.

Havana Motor Club (2015) Tribeca 2015

If you love cars, especially classic cars you must see this.

If you love to see a film where the passion for a subject bleed off the screen and goes into you like a cinematic transfusion you must see this film.

If you ever wanted to fall in love with a place you've probably never been you must see this film.

Thank you Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt for making one hell of a film. Not only have you tweaked my love of cars and racing, but you've also made me fall in love with Cuba.

This is the story of the return of auto racing to Cuba after a 50 plus year ban (it was considered an elitist sport). . Following a group of madly passionate gear heads over the course of two years as they ride the waves of official whims and try to make their illegal street racing legal.

What can I say but this film had me smiling from ear to ear. I loved this film for any number of reasons.

First there are the old cars. Cuba really doesn't have many new cars so most of the cars are 50 and 60 years old. When they are in the hands of men and women as passionate as these people are they are glorious works of art.  Almost every car is just a thing of beauty-even the ones that aren't racing.

Secondly there are the crazy guys and gals who race. Watching them work on their cars and argue among themselves with a passion that fills their soul makes you want to join them How could you not want to hang out with people who are this passionate? Hell even the fans are passionate as we see during races as the spectators try to get as close to the action as possible.

Thirdly there is Cuba. I don't think that Perlmutt shot the country any way other then just pointing a camera and shooting, but what ever magic he worked made me home sick for a place I've never been. Havanna is now a place I desperately want to see in person. There is a beauty and a sense of being alive that I've never felt about a city on film.

This film is pure magic. Even when the film bumps oddly through time and events we are still carried along, we are still made to feel good.

I love this film a great deal. Go see it.

Alumbrones (2013)

Alumbrones is one of those movies that is going make you wish it was twice as long as it is. Filled with great people, great art, great music and a bouncy wonderful sense of life this is a glorious portrait of the artistic community in Cuba and how they are struggling to survive. It’s a film that makes you feel good.

The film follows a large number of artists as they go about their lives trying to create and get by in a country that was hit hard when the Berlin Wall fell and the the Soviet Union stopped being communist. The Soviet Union was  responsible for keeping Cuba economically viable and when that was lost the country changed. Artists had to scramble.

Fortunately the artists over came the restrictions and they continued to make some truly wonderful and breath taking art. What the artists are turning out is something special and for me it was a wonderful thing to get to see not only the art but also to see how much of it comes together.  I love to watch how art is created especially when we get to have the creators talk about what they are doing and why, for me that adds so much to any piece of art, especially really cool art as much of this is. Equally cool is that the artists don't come off as above it all, their answers don't seem to be by rote. I've talked to a good number of artists over the years and some seem distant here everyone is engaged and wants very much to talk about their life and art and it creates something truly magical.

The problem for me is that it’s much too short at 75 minutes (70 minutes if you ignore the end credits). There is simply too many people and too much to cover in that brief period. Yes, I know the focus is more on the artistic community as a whole and not so much on the members of themselves, but at the same time when you have such wonderful characters such as these it would have been nice to spend a little bit more time with them. (And I would give you their names but I don’t remember who was who, the only real technical flaw in the film is that until the end credits come we really don’t know anyone’s name.)

Ultimately it’s a minor flaw. It’s nitpicking kind of like having the most delicious of candies and then getting pissed it wasn’t a multi-course meal. I’m bitching because I want to indulge in more of it.

You have to understand I’m a sucker for films that show creation. I love to watch art being done. I love to see how it all comes together. I love to hear how and why artists create and this film is full of that.

This is a great film. If you get a chance go see it.

The film opens Friday at the Quad Cinema in New York