Soy Cuba- Week 7

The 1964 film Soy Cuba (I am Cuba) is a film depiction of Cuba. Four different stories are tied together  through a narrating poem read in between each one. The four stories show the beautiful and lavish side of Cuba as well as the poor and more sad times of Cuba. The poem depicts Cuba as a strong and beautiful place, but only because of the prideful and passionate people who made it all possible.

In the first story the film shows happy people vacationing and laying by the pool along with men in a bar dancing with women, one of the men makes the choice to go home with one of the women because he is “interested” to know how they (the locals) live. It doesn’t take long for him to find out just how poor the living conditions for the women are. After he leaves the women the next morning the kids begin following him begging for money.

The second story shows a man working very hard in his sugar cane field. He seems happy to be working until he is told the field has been sold and he no longer has an income or home for his family. The Eckstein article discusses  how important sugar was as an export for Cuba. Castro used his power to control the production to his advantage. This story depicts the serious devastation Castro had on families who depended on the sugar cane plants (and other items) as personal income.

According the to the Eckstein article, “Cuba is the only country in the region to have experienced a socialist revolution.” The film depicts the people of Cuba as strong willed and passionate about their liberation. The third story of the film showed many men giving their lives for what they believed in. The passion behind the people of Cuba is very well portrayed in the movie. The passion of the Cuban’s did not stop at themselves. The Fuente article talks about how Cuban’s wanted to abolish slavery. It mentions how much “softer” the relationship between the white and blacks were. The film depicted the Cuban’s as hard working people. It seems they very much were self dependent and only wished to be liberated in order to live a simple and happy life.

The last story seemed the shortest, but most significant. It was story of love for family and country. On the hillside sat a house, a small house where a man, his wife, and four children lived. A short while after the man had returned home a plane began flying over the house, throwing bombs toward it. During the escape they lost one of their sons. When the family gathered together again the man decides he must fight for his country. It appears at the beginning of the story he was not willing to go to war, he wished to live in peace, but shortly after his son is killed he realizes that he would need to fight in the war and protect his country in order to protect his family.