Cuban films based on politics

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Memories of Underdevelopment (Memorias del subdesarrollo), by Tomas Gutiérrez Alea 1968, Cuba
Tomas Gutiérrez Alea’s Memories of Underdevelopment is one of the greatest Cuban political films. This thrilling blend of narrative fiction, exceptional documentary footage and still photography details multiple inconsistencies and intricacies of a bourgeois loyalty to Fidel Castro’s evolution by Cuban intellectuals. While Tomas was devoted to the cause, this film like most of his films scrutinizes the self-devouring nature of Castro’s Cuba. It considers the failure of the new government to identify the bourgeois threats directed to anti-capitalist ideologies that were presented in Cuba.
This movie takes place between the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 with the protagonist being a bourgeois by the name Sergio. He chooses to stay behind in Cuba even as his family and those close to him have left for the United States as a result of the 1959 revolution. As evident in the title of the film, this movie refers to the political stagnation in Cuba. The manner in which Tomas pieces together the scenes in the film is in its own an act of political resistance. The footage in this documentary, therefore, raises attention to the conflict of a complex group of individuals which is tearing down the country from inside. Tomas uses a jarring framing device that situates Elena as an exotic specimen that is trapped beneath American imperialism.

By so doing, he tries to bring up the point that just like Elena and Ernest Hemmingway, it is only a matter of time before Cuba would self-destroy itself.
Therefore, this film tries to give an in-depth insight into the historical and cultural vacuum created by foreign threats, invasion, and restraints. And like the protagonist in the film, the country, and its citizens can only feebly stumble in the unfulfilled promises of its revolutionary awareness.
Works Cited
Memories of Underdevelopment. Directed by Tomás G. Alea, Perf. Sergio, Elena, Hemmingway. 1968.