Follow workers.org on
RED HOT: TRAYVON MARTIN
CHINA,
AFGHANISTAN, FIGHTING RACISM, OCCUPY WALL STREET,
PEOPLE'S POWER, SAVE OUR POST OFFICES, WOMEN, AFRICA,
LIBYA, WISCONSIN WORKERS FIGHT BACK, SUPPORT STATE & LOCAL WORKERS,
EGYPT, NORTH AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST,
STOP FBI REPRESSION, RESIST ARIZONA RACISM, NO TO FRACKING, DEFEND PUBLIC EDUCATION, ANTI-WAR,
HEALTH CARE,
CUBA, CLIMATE CHANGE,
JOBS JOBS JOBS,
STOP FORECLOSURES, IRAN,
IRAQ, CAPITALIST CRISIS,
IMMIGRANTS, LGBT, POLITICAL PRISONERS,
KOREA,
HONDURAS, HAITI,
SOCIALISM,
GAZA
|
|
‘Strawberry and Chocolate’
The sweet taste of change in Cuba
Lavender & red, part 103
By
Leslie Feinberg
Published Jun 28, 2007 9:20 PM
In 1993, the Cuban state sponsored a ground-breaking movie, “Strawberry
and Chocolate” (“Fresa y
Chocolate”).
The movie tells the story of two young Cuban men—a heterosexual communist
and a homosexual. In his 1995 Cineaste article, Dennis West described the movie
about two young men getting to know each other in Havana in 1979. David is the
young communist. Diego, the homosexual, West writes, “leaves in spite of
his pro-Revolution sympathies and his friend’s claim that there is a
place for gays in the Cuban Revolution.” (vol. 21, no. 1-2, Winter-Spring
1995)
The release of “Strawberry and Chocolate” in Cuba broke national
box office records and opened up an island-wide discussion about same-sex love
and prejudice.
The movie’s script is an adaptation by author Senel Paz of his own very
popular short story, “The Wolf, the Woods and the New Man.”
Dennis West interviewed acclaimed Cuban director Tomás Gutiérrez
Alea—affectionately known to friends as “Titón” but also
referred to as Alea—in August 1994. Gutiérrez died, at age 68, in
April 1996. West conducted the interview in Juárez, Mexico, during the
Second Festival of Latinamerican Cinema Paso del Norte; Dennis West and Joan M.
West translated the interview into English, edited it and published it in the
Winter-Spring 1995 edition of Cineaste.
The movie, which played simultaneously at 10 to 12 Havana theaters, drew lines
of Cubans that stretched for blocks. (Larry R. Oberg, “The Status of Gays
in Cuba: Myth and Reality”)
When West asked Gutiérrez why he thought his movie “Strawberry and
Chocolate” so resonated in Cuba, the filmmaker answered that as soon as
the movie opened after the annual film festival, “There were very long
lines to see it, and it ran for something like three months in Havana. I think
it had that response because it was a well-told story with a theme that many
people wanted to discuss in public. A theme that up until this time had
remained rather marginalized. I’m not referring just to the theme of
homosexuality, but rather to the theme of intolerance in general. I think that
people really felt a great need to reflect on this, and to reflect on it
openly. For these reasons, the film became a sociological
phenomenon.”
When asked about the number of Cuban viewers who attended screenings,
Gutiérrez said, “‘Strawberry and Chocolate’ may hold the
record for the greatest number of Cuban viewers. I don’t know. But at any
rate, it is the film which has attracted the greatest number of viewers in the
shortest period of time.”
Gutiérrez contrasted 1979, the year in which “Strawberry and
Chocolate” is set, with life on the island in 1995: “Now there is
greater flexibility in job opportunities for homosexuals. In the case of
representing Cuba abroad, for example, the appointment of representatives used
to be handled with kid gloves when homosexuals were involved. Many people were
against appointing them because they were considered more vulnerable to scandal
and blackmail—and that’s true, we’ve seen it in countries
such as England and the United States—but things are very different
nowadays for homosexuals.”
Gutiérrez summed up, “Many Cuban homosexuals are now open about
their sexual orientation. Others are not open about it—just like anywhere
else—but there is a new level of awareness concerning
homosexuality.”
Gutiérrez recalled the experience of his friend Aramis, who told him in
Havana in 1994 about an argument with his father. Aramis said when he returned
home for a visit with shoulder-length hair, his father used an anti-gay slur
and ordered his son to get a haircut or leave.
Gutiérrez said Aramis argued with his father, saying, “You’re
supposed to be a communist, for freedom, for human beings. I’m your son,
you should love me, whether or not I’m a homosexual. What kind of
communist are you?”
Gutiérrez said by the time Aramis had stormed to the door, his father
stopped him with these words: “Wait. You’re right. You can stay.
You don’t have to cut your hair. I’ve got to think about these
things.” Aramis added, “So we hugged, and I stayed.”
‘The trajectory of Cuban cinema’
Julia Levin, a Latvian freelance film critic who lives in the U.S., described
Gutiérrez Alea as the most famous director in Cuba. She noted that the
filmmaker was born to a bourgeois family in 1928. After getting a law degree
from the University of Havana, he studied film at “the Centro
Sperimentale della Cinematographia in Rome (which had spawned, amongst others,
Michelangelo Antonioni), where he fell in love with cinema and where he
directed his first neorealist film, El Mégano (1954), with Julio
García Espinosa, another filmmaker he met at Centro
Sperimentale.”
Levin continued, “It has been noted that this film marked the very
beginning of the New Latin American Cinema, the ‘new wave’ in
cinema that grew out of the desire by many Latin American filmmakers to unveil
the conflicting realities of their own countries and to do this by exploring
the political potential of the filmic medium.
“Alea was one of the founders of the Instituto Cubano del Arte y la
Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC),” Levin wrote, “which was
created in 1959 in order to vigorously produce and promote cinema as the most
progressive vehicle for communicating the ideas of the revolutionary through,
for the most part, documentaries, although some fiction films were made there
as well.
“The ICAIC recognized film as the most powerful and important art form in
modern life, a voice of the state, and, unquestionably, the most accessible
form of distributing revolutionary ideas to the masses. In its first 24 years,
ICAIC produced nearly 900 documentaries and over 112 feature films.”
Levin pointed out, “Artistically and intellectually, the trajectory of
Cuban cinema—from cinéma vérité to experimentalism, and
from neorealist drama to social comedy—has paralleled the trajectory of
Alea’s directorial career. Similarly, Alea’s films are a primary
source of cultural politics in revolutionary Cuba, a fact that allows one to
study his films directly against the political climate in which he lived and
worked.”
Daniel West added that “Tomás Gutiérrez Alea has been the most
prominent of the filmmakers working in Cuba’s government-supported film
institute. ... Gutiérrez Alea is a committed revolutionary, and his best
features explore the social, political and historical dimensions of the
revolutionary progress.” (www.sensesofcinema.com)
Solidarity served up
with a cherry on top
After Cuba lost the socialist solidarity and trade it had had with the Soviet
Union, the illegal U.S. blockade tightened its grip on the island’s
economy.
West pointed out in 1995, “Given the profound economic crisis currently
gripping Cuba, it is astonishing that a feature such as ‘Strawberry and
Chocolate’ could be produced. The situation in ICAIC is desperate. Top
directors such as Gutiérrez Alea earn the approximate equivalent of $5.00
per month, and the once relatively well-funded ICAIC filmmakers can now
undertake a feature only if co-production money is available. The low-budget
‘Strawberry and Chocolate,’ for instance, could not have been
produced without Mexican and Spanish support.”
Gutiérrez Alea, battling cancer, also had to undergo surgery during the
production of the film. Juan Carlos Tabío, a collaborator, stepped up to
co-direct the film.
“Strawberry and Chocolate” was the first Cuban movie to be
nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category. (Levin)
Daniel West concluded in early 1995: “The commercial release of
‘Strawberry and Chocolate’ in the U.S. is a welcome event because
U.S. authorities have at times hounded Gutiérrez Alea—by, for
example, denying his visa requests or blocking exhibitions of his works. This
interviewer’s videotape copy of [Gutiérrez’s 1968 film]
‘Memories of Underdevelopment’ was confiscated by U.S. Customs in
Los Angeles when he entered the country on Dec. 11, 1993, after having legally
attended the annual International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in
Havana.”
By the closing ceremony of that festival in Havana on Dec. 10, 1993,
“Strawberry and Chocolate” had won most of the top awards.
“Afterwards”—West, who was a guest, described—“in
the Palace of the Revolution, Fidel Castro held a reception for festival guests
featuring strawberry and chocolate ice cream served together for
dessert.”
Next: “Gay Cuba”
To find out more about Cuba, read parts 86-102 of Lavender & Red at
workers.org.
E-mail: [email protected]
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: [email protected]
Subscribe [email protected]
Support independent news DONATE
|
|