Memories of Underdevelopment
1968
Directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea
I am so behind in this blog, it is ridiculous. The mounting number of posts I have to write has failed to be a motivator; in fact, I have been procrastinating for the past two days. I am finally settling down to write and hopefully make a dent in the 10+ posts I have to write...
Our main slime ball character, Sergio, decides to stay in Cuba, even though most people, including his wife, are fleeing to Miami due to the violence and social changes. I guess he wants more time to sleep with his girlfriends without his wife's interference?
I did not like this film at all. I felt like it was a worse version of Hiroshima Mon Amour. The style was all over the place as well. I get that it was trying to resemble how we recall our own memories but I was already confused about the events in the film. So basically I have no idea what happened. Why are subtitles always so terrible?
Anyway, sorry for the short review; we got lots to do people!
RATING: **---
Interesting Facts:
Heavily influenced by Hiroshima Mon Amour. HA! Knew it!
Gosh, I had totally failed to spot any semblance between this and Hiroshima... Now you say it....
ReplyDeleteMy memory of this have faded.. I got it with a box set of about 4 or 5 other Cuban films from the same era which I watched pretty much at the same time... and they all became a bit of a blurred oneness...
This is definitely one that I won't be able to recall in a couple weeks. Your film collection seems quite impressive. How many movies do you think you have?
DeleteHard to say.. probably about 2,500..
ReplyDeleteNowhere near enough room to have kept them in their cases, so in neat paper envelopes, with details written on.. the categorised into a very eccentric filing system...
Some quite obvious..most main genres have a box to them selves 'Noir', Crime, 'Horror', 'British', 'American'.. but those are sub divided.. some, simple.. British / American by decade... some get fun.. Crime for example has 'American 40's gangster' (mostly Warner Bros)'.. so that's where your Cagney, Edward G etc live. Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie have their own section...But then strange ones creep in if I'm feeling in a flippant mood.. so you can find 'Night train to Munich' and the likes under a sub genre called 'Assorted dodgy looking foreigners with suspicious accents on a train'. At that point I run into difficulties.. 'The lady vanishes' obviously belongs here.. but that is already in the 'Directors' box under Hitchcock.
And where the heck did I put 'Metropolis'.. is it in Silent box under 'German silent' , in the Directors box under 'Lang', in the SciFi box? In the horror box in the 'dystopian future' sub genre? In the politics box under 'oppressive regimes' sub genre? (I actually know.. it's under Lang.. director trumps all.. so don't try and find 'Double indemnity' under Noir or American crime.. it's under 'Billy Wilder'
I should shut up now.
Okay that sounds like a dream. 2,500!! That's incredible!
DeleteWhen you get to read Marcel Proust I think you will find some semblance with this movie. I liked the pictures and the themes, but the format annoyed me as well. A little too pretentious for something that could be interesting.
ReplyDeleteRay, that is an impressive filing system. I went for the chronology of the List and then a smaller, chaotic group on non-List movies in chronological order. At least what you know the year, you know where to find it. Still a long way up to 2.5K though...
I actually have read Proust now, but I don't think I had at the time. I am much more patient reader than I am a filmgoer. So I still might not like it, though I love Proust.
ReplyDeleteYou've actually read Proust.. I'm impressed. BBC Radio did a full reading lst holiday weekend.. and beyond. I kept stumbling across bits of it and - and maybe this was just bad timing - all it seemed to be was privileged people twitting on about how lady something was coming to visit and meeting Duchess of wifflewiffle at the opera. It seemed mind numbingly boring...
ReplyDeleteSorry.
You are allowed to call me a philistine, but first you would have to retract all accusations of pretension for liking anything by Bergman..
Talking of which... last night was a BBC special called 'A year in the life of Ingmar Bergman'.. But it was about just about all his life.
Some things about him were rather shocking.....