| Actors:
| Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood, José Gallardo, Raúl García, Luz María Collazo | | Director:
| Mikhail Kalatozov | | Format:
| Black & White, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC | | Language:
| Russian, Spanish | | Subtitle:
| English | | Number of Discs:
| 1 | | Studio:
| Image Entertainment | | Run Time:
| 141 minutes | | DVD Release Date:
| January 18, 2000 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 67 reviews |
|
Average Customer Review:
 ( 67 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 25 found the following review helpful:
 Don't forget that USSR banned this film!Sep 19, 2000
By John Ronald
I had the pleasure to view this film on wide-screen at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts cinema venue back around 1996 or so. It was utterly breathtaking...and a special treat for me since I also speak Spanish and Russian as foreign languages (I for one, didn't mind the subtle Russian dubbing following the sentences in Spanish & English). I notice most of the reviewers comment on it's role as a "communist propoganda film". Yes, well, the film tries hard to follow the "Socialist Realist" of 'official' Soviet Art, but it (thankfully utterly) fails to do so and slides breathlessly into a "Magical Realist" mode with elements that Soviet critics would have disdained as "metaphysical". Indeed, the remarkable thing is that this film was BANNED in the USSR *and* CUBA shortly after its release. Didn't sit well with the Politburo, etc. The cinematography is wonderful. Yes, it is critical of the Norteamericanos, but the film does not demonize them. Think of the scene w/ the American sailors...I was anticipating a fight and a violent rape...but it doesn't happen. The film could have been much harsher on the US than it was. I may very well buy this film on VHS. I'm happy to see it available for rent at my local Blockbuster's.
19 of 19 found the following review helpful:
I Am CubaFeb 07, 2004
By B. Brown
"Terminally Art Hip"
I don't know any filmmakers who are not stunned by this visual masterpiece. The hand held shot that traverses a hotel in decadent, pre-Castro Cuba is the stuff of legend- a long moving camera shot that floats through space as if suspended by magic. And this was before the steady-cam was invented. The opening aerials shot with infrared film alone justify this film's 5 star rating. You don't have to take the politics seriously to admire the fluid camera work and unique aural-visual style of this little seen master work.
27 of 30 found the following review helpful:
American propaganda clearly is effective...Feb 20, 2006
By Charlie G. Dodson
"Alghazi"
...judging by the simple-minded dismissive tone of some of the reviewers on this page.
When you say you know nothing about Cuba's history, and then dismiss "I Am Cuba" as propaganda, you are displaying both your own ignorance and the success of the American propaganda machine in conditioning Americans to accept simplistic answers to complex questions.
"I Am Cuba" is a beautiful film, and makes no attempt to portray itself as even-handed. The assumption is that we already know what the white Cuban elite wants us to know. This is explicitly the story of those the elite would prefer to pretend do not exist.
Having lived overseas, I'm sorry to say the grotesque images of American businessmen and the arrogant debauchery of sailors on leave in a 3rd World country are depressingly accurate, especially for the time depicted. And exactly whom do we think is fueling the international child sex trade today, if not wealthy Americans "on vacation"?
Cuba and the USA have a long and tortured history. Cuba's white elite sought to atrtach Cuba to the US prior to our Civil War, so as to perpetuate slavery on their sugar plantations. That same elite allowed the US to assume control over Cuba after the Spanish-American War, when the Platt Ammendment gave the US government extraordinary control over Cuba's internal politics as well as foriegn policy. No good could come of all those "coloreds" having democracy, certainly not a few nautical miles away from our "coloreds"! Later, we changed our minds: the problem with the poor isn't that they're black, it's that they're Communist sympathizers. We trained Batista, kept him in power, and with American corporate investment Cuba became essentially a sick amalgam of plantation and whore-house, with a monsterous gap between the mainly white elite and the rest of the population.
The one "sympathetic" businessman debauches the young taxi-dancer, and then wants to buy her one treasured posession. A clear if obvious metaphor for the "good intentions" of Americans who are as oblivious to the realities of the world as that guy was on his way to her shack. On the way out, it's a lot clearer.
Cuba is a flawed country today, but one where everyone has access to education and healthcare, two issues raised specifically in "I Am Cuba". Whatever happens in the future, it is difficult to imagine the disgruntled elites camped out in Miami being welcomed back to their nightclubs and haciendas any time soon. "I AM Cuba" makes a simple point: the Cuban exiles in Miami are NOT Cuba; in the truest sense, they never really were, and they certainly never will be again.
25 of 30 found the following review helpful:
 Image's DVD transfer of a great film is for the dogs...Feb 02, 2000
Understand this: I am fanatical about this movie. But Image's DVD transfer is so painfully inept to watch -- horrid print, spots and speckles, strobing due to oddball frame rate, hideous contrast levels -- that I couldn't bear to watch the DVD beyond 10 minutes.The person responsible for such an incompetent and abysmal edition of this can't miss movie should be flayed alive in front of all true lovers of cinema. Image, which chopped 10 minutes out of JULIET OF THE SPIRITS despite the representations of the packaging, is the Good Times Video of DVD. That they would do such a worthless job for a Fellini film is cause for anger. That they would due this again to Kalazotov is sacrilegous.
9 of 10 found the following review helpful:
I AM NOT CUBAJun 13, 2000
By a reviewer who was there
I was a twenty-something and living in La Habana when this film was made. It did not do good business in La Habana or anywhere else on the island because we knew it to be a lie. As a joke we referred to it as "I AM Not Cuba" (although we never dared to joke publicly). I remember it was even a source of embarassment to some of my school friends who had joined the party for advancement and worked at the Ministry of Education, assigned to promote the film. Having said this, I want to state that the picture is certainly a marvel of cinematography and direction. It is genuinely beautiful and graceful cinema. If you do not mind that it is all one big lie, (and I suspect that most who will see it, don't mind one bit) it will be of much enjoyment. Is beauty still beautiful when at the service of evil? Apparently yes. For those who enjoy world cinema and Soviet cinema in particular, I can also recommend SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS by the great Sergei Paradjanov. Coincidentally made around the same time, poor Paradjanov was even still more beautiful but did not lie. He was sentenced to prison and served hard labor as a consequence.
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