June 13, 2007
Andy Garcia's must-see movie
I just finished watching Andy Garcia's bittersweet film, The Lost City, a moving, beautiful portrayal of a family, a city, and a nation -- all laid low by the scourge of the Communist Fidelistas.
Garcia -- who acted and directed -- is tremendous both behind the camera and in front; his portrayal of the eldest son, Fico, a nightclub owner in Havana, is raw and honest. The intensity of Fico's love -- love of family, of Havana, of Cuba -- is almost too much to bear; at times I wanted to look away, so strong was the sensation that I was intruding on the most deeply felt, private moments of a real person.
The film is beautifully lensed; I watched in Hi-Def, standing for more than an hour within a couple of feet of the flat-panel display, lost in the the story, the music and the images, never noticing (until the credits were rolling) that the hour was so late, the ache in my feet from standing on the tile floor.
The soul-destroying nature of the People's Revolution is on display; so too the never-ending sorrow of the refugee, who fiercely, desperately wants nothing more than for time to run backwards, for things to be as they once were.
Fico tells his American friend that if he had one wish, it would be to live his life over again, to enjoy all that was good -- before the bearded bastard and his acolytes turned it all to ashes.
I wote about the film last year, when it was released on DVD. At the time, I said I'd watch it then (mea culpa), but having finally done so, I can't recommend it highly enough.
Here's what I said in August 2006.
Andy Garcia's The Lost City hit the shelves today, after receiving a limited release in theaters -- and lukewarm praise from the nation's movie critics. But after reading several articles, including Kathryn Jean Lopez' (excerpted below), I'm going to pick up a copy and watch it this weekend.
It seems apropos, given the possibility that Castro may finally join his late, unlamented homicidal friend -- Che Guevara -- in the Hell that awaits those who bring such misery to their countrymen.
The Lost City is an intensely personal project for Garcia. An ode to his homeland, Cuba, it’s full of the passion Hispanic culture is known for—as he portrays family life, the social scene, and, of course, the politics of a troubled island.The film is set in late-1950s Cuba, right on the eve of la revolución, and Garcia, who directed and stars, crashes straight into the myth of Che Guevara—¡Gracias a Dios! The Lost City has something for everyone: contagious music, a love story, family drama—and familiar faces in Bill Murray, playing to type, and Dustin Hoffman, playing a mobster. But it’s a love story unlike anything Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks or any chick-flick might bring you—here the love between a man and woman can’t escape the brutality of sacrifice and tyranny, and is but one love, where democracy is a deep and abiding one.
[...]
Movie reviewers—a club of which I most definitely am not a member—have taken issue with The Lost City: It is, they point out, too long. But viva The Lost City anyway—it more than makes up for its flaws in its myth-busting cultural contributions.
Here in the U.S., where Che Guevara T-shirts are a staple at most soccer-mom shopping malls and on college campuses, it’s a countercultural revolution of a movie ... It provides a much-needed respite of moral clarity in between Robert Redford’s Oscar-winning Motorcycle Diaries (which portrayed a young Guevara—doctor and freedom fighter—as a secular saint) and the upcoming Steven Soderbergh Che-fest starring Benicio Del Toro (both Soderbergh and Del Toro are Oscar winners).
Che—a Communist responsible for Castro’s gulags—was a monster. But nothing I could tell you about him could do him the kind of justice that Garcia’s film does. You see some of Guevara’s brutality, but Garcia’s most powerful scene may be the one where Fico himself faces Che. When Fico is forced to confront the executioner on prison grounds on behalf of a friend, the viewer feels not only Garcia’s anger and disgust (he himself, as a child, fled this tyrant’s thuggery), but the pain and hatred of an entire people whose lives were irrevocably changed by the Castro-Guevara nightmare. This is Garcia’s moment: You watch a race of overwhelming emotions in the character, and you have the palpable sense it’s not all acting.There is another haunting scene as you take the heart-wrenching walk with Fico when he embarks on his journey out of Cuba to Lady Liberty’s arms, you might as well be watching home movies from the Garcia family’s own exit; the emotion is that raw.
Garcia’s movie has clearly touched a nerve already: It has been banned in several South American countries. No surprise, given that “Viva Che” is a natural mantra for the likes of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. And we can’t forget, of course, about Fidel Castro, in power since 1959, with doctors threatening he could live to be 140—60 more years.
Garcia has said in response to the controversy about his movie: “Some people think Castro is a savior, that he looks out for kids and the poor. It's a bunch of hogwash. In the 45 years since Castro has been in power, Cuba has been in the top three countries for human rights abuses for 43 of those years. People turn a blind eye to his atrocities.” Not Andy Garcia though.
... The Chicago Tribune's critic said:
Throbbing with music, seething with anger and romance, "The Lost City" is a film that breaks your heart, bewilders, alienates and ravishes you by turns.
How can you not want to see a movie that does all that?
Well, how can you not?
Viva Cuba Libre!
Posted by Mike Lief at June 13, 2007 12:47 AM
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Comments
Mike, thanks for posting about Andy's incredible film. And thanks for the VIVA CUBA LIBRE sentiment. At Passover Jews all over the world used to say (or do they still say it?) "Next year in Jerusalem." Cubans living in political exile in the U.S. have an equivalent prayer, "Next year in Havana!"
Back to Andy's film. Watching the film (I actually bought the DVD after you suggested it) I was transported back in time to my early years in Cuba--at the beginning of the Revolucion.
Everything shown in the film, every action by the Comunistas, as well as every action by the Batistianos, happened just as Andy showed it in his movie.
Two scenes are specially true: where Andy shows the contrast between the treatment that his brother received at the hands of Batista's police and the treatment that Andy's childhood friend suffered at the hands of the Revolucionarios.
In the first instance Andy's friend helped release Andy's brother; in the second instance Andy's brother wouldn't lift a finger to help release the man who had earlier spared his life. The juxtaposition of those two scenes illustrates the point that as bad as Batista was made out to seem (by the pro-Castro press in the U.S.), he was nothing in comparison to the evil of Castro's and Che's reign of terror.
The other scene that was so incredibly real that it brought me to tears was the scene where Andy is leaving Cuba and he (along with the other Cubans leaving the island) has to endure one last round of humiliation at the hand of the savage beasts that make up Castro's guard. My family and I endured almost identical treatment when we left Cuba. It was incredible to see it portrayed so vividly on the screen.
I am not at all surprised that the liberal media ignored Andy's film while at the same time tripping all over themselves over [Michael] Moore's self-serving "documentaries."
Posted by: EJ Acosta at June 15, 2007 09:18 PM