1968
Directed by Humberto Solas
It has been way too long since I last posted, so I apologize. I struggled to find this one and when I finally did track it down, I was too busy to pop it in since I am in the process of moving. Rather than face the horror of unpacking my kitchen supplies, I decided to finally knock this out.
This movie is divided into three parts, each one based on a character named Lucia. The firstLucia falls in love with married stranger, who may or may not be plotting against her nationalist brother. The second Lucia falls in love with a revolutionary and must deal with the consequences of his actions. Stay away from the soldiers ladies. The final Lucia is treated as a slave by her husband. This is the only section that attempts to be comedic, but I just found it to be disturbing. The moral seems to be "well, at least it isn't as bad as it was." I don't mind watching the women's rights movement develop, but I am certainly not going to laugh at people's reluctance to provide equality. Please excuse my extreme crankiness; it has not been a good day.
Did anyone else feel like they were watching videos shot by some creepy guy behind the bushes? I am not sure why I got that vibe, but I have seen enough horror films to be properly freaked out by it.
I have to leave soon, so I am going to wrap this up by saying that parts of this film were so overreacted that it was sometimes a bit hard to watch. Skippable.
RATING: **---
Interesting Facts:
Winner of the Golden Prize and the Prix FIPRESCI.
Good morning Amanda,
ReplyDeleteFirstly, good to see you back.. I was wondering where you had got to, But you were moving.. well, that is certainly more than enough work to do without watching stuff.. and then writing it all up.
After such a break,, shame it's not one either of us can really get our teeth into. and have a good natter about. Another of those I know full well I have seen, but struggle to remember much about .. I watched this in an almost straight set with 'Memories of underdevelopment', 'Soy Cuba' .. and one other that I'm not sure was a list film or not, but came in a box set of 4 Cuban films.. and, I'm afraid that at this distance they can merge and blur a little. On the whole, I rather enjoyed by 'Cuban experience'.. but really only in a 'Well that is different' way. On the negative side, the same heavy hand of the party line that made all those Soviet films of the 20's / 30's a bit of a toil made (and this one was touching 3 hours) them, at times, something I was glad to be over and finished. Shame - a view of Cuba and it's people as something other than a bunch of vicious crooks (Scarface) or sweaty degenerates (Godfather) should be something to celebrate.
I may beg to differ that it is 'disturbing' that the message seems to be 'Well, things were even worse then'. Well, perhaps that was how it came out - to us - looking at something made .. gulp - almost 50 years ago from our 'now' perspective... but I would beg forgiveness and claim histoical context in that it admitted there was a problem.. and progress is progress..
(as I wrote that I did actually begin to slightly doubt my own argument.. but on the whole , I'll leave it in)
Changing the subject.. I just had a quick browse down your 'done list' to see if you had seen the Robert Bresson's from The Book. Andrew has done them, and we came to differing conclusions about Mr. Bresson's own out look on religious faith. Andrew (forgive me for trying to sum up your ideas so simply) was that Bresson is an atheist having a go at faith, the church, and those who doubt.(Using the doubts of the priest in 'Diary of..' as the prime example). Where as ....
I felt that Bresson is person of very strong faith and rather beat us round the head with far from subtle imagery ('Baltasaar' as by far the most extreme example) to make Christ parallels withe Donkey.
I think I must end this now and go and look at what you said...
Hey Ray!
DeleteI agree with you about Bresson; I always felt like I was listening to one of those guys that yells on street corners about Christ. If he was an atheist, it went right over my head. Shouldn't I have something akin to gaydar for detecting fellow atheists?
My perspective was that the last part of Lucia was admitting that there was a problem but kind of poking fun at people trying to solve it? I can't really explain it; I just kind of got a mean spirited vibe from it!
You actually found a workable copy of this movie!? Lucky you. This was by far the most difficult movie to obtain so far and I guess there is a reason when they are difficult to find.
ReplyDeleteFor me, Me and My Gal was the hardest movie to find. Yes, exactly they are almost never worth it.
DeleteThe first part was a real drag for me. Some impressive aspects, but like an art project of unrelatable . . . stuff. But parts two and three were progressively easier to get into. Maybe as the characters got more modern, maybe as the filmmakers were depicting real people rather than their imaginings of what people must have been like decades earlier.
ReplyDelete