Cinema Abroad
I Am Cuba
Clyde Coffee and The Roxy Theater are thrilled to present Cinema Abroad, a series of classic and contemporary foreign films.
Started only a week after the Cuban Missile Crisis and designed to be Cuba’s answer to both Sergei Eisenstein’s propaganda masterpiece Battleship Potemkin and Jean-Luc Godard’s freewheeling romance Breathless, I Am Cuba turned out to be something quite unique — a wildly schizophrenic celebration of Communist iconography, mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality. The plot, or rather plots, feverishly explore the seductive, decadent (and marvelously photogenic) world of Batista’s Cuba — deliriously juxtaposing images of rich Americans and bikini-clad beauties sipping cocktails poolside with scenes of ramshackle slums.
Using wide-angle lenses that distort and magnify and filters that transform palm trees into giant white feathers, cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky’s acrobatic camera achieves wild gravity-defying angles as it glides effortlessly through long continuous shots. But I Am Cuba is not just a catalog of bravura technique — it also succeeds in exploring the innermost feelings of the characters and their often desperate situations. Shown unsubtitled at the San Francisco International Film Festival, I Am Cuba received two standing ovations — during the screening. The first movie ever jointly presented by master filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, I Am Cuba is one of the great discoveries in cinema.
Started only a week after the Cuban Missile Crisis and designed to be Cuba’s answer to both Sergei Eisenstein’s propaganda masterpiece Battleship Potemkin and Jean-Luc Godard’s freewheeling romance Breathless, I Am Cuba turned out to be something quite unique — a wildly schizophrenic celebration of Communist iconography, mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality. The plot, or rather plots, feverishly explore the seductive, decadent (and marvelously photogenic) world of Batista’s Cuba — deliriously juxtaposing images of rich Americans and bikini-clad beauties sipping cocktails poolside with scenes of ramshackle slums.
Using wide-angle lenses that distort and magnify and filters that transform palm trees into giant white feathers, cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky’s acrobatic camera achieves wild gravity-defying angles as it glides effortlessly through long continuous shots. But I Am Cuba is not just a catalog of bravura technique — it also succeeds in exploring the innermost feelings of the characters and their often desperate situations. Shown unsubtitled at the San Francisco International Film Festival, I Am Cuba received two standing ovations — during the screening. The first movie ever jointly presented by master filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, I Am Cuba is one of the great discoveries in cinema.
Cast: Sergio Corrieri, Jose Gallardo, Luz Maria Collazo
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
Duration: 141 min
Released: 1964
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Spanish
Subtitles: Subtitled
Country: Cuba/Russia
Cinema Abroad
I Am Cuba
