Zombie film takes dead aim at life in Cuba

El Presidente · December 12, 2011

Zombie film takes dead aim at life in Cuba

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/11/4114298/zombie-film-takes-dead-aim-at.html

Sacramento Bee

Monday December 12

HAVANA – The day after Havana is invaded by the living dead, Juan and Sara emerge from their dilapidated apartment building to find the streets filled with people roving aimlessly, their wide eyes blank.

"It all looks the same to me," Sara shrugs.

The suggestion that 52 years of socialist rule have turned Cuba into a zombie state, a central conceit of the new Cuban horror spoof "Juan of the Dead," is daringly irreverent satire for a country that takes its revolution deadly seriously.

But instead of being forced underground, the movie was included in an officially sanctioned film festival last week where Cubans flocked to see it in such numbers that the police had to intervene and extra screenings were added. Its camp humor notwithstanding, this crude, low-budget splatter film has become an improbable landmark in the gradual opening of Cuban culture.

"Cinema reflects what's going on around us," said Carlos Hernández, 47, a street performer who was among the 1,300-strong audience at a screening Thursday. "There are openings. The walls around what you can and can't say are starting to crumble. There's an irreverence in the movie that reflects the wider irreverence felt by a lot of young people."

"Juan of the Dead" is by no means the first Cuban film to examine the darker aspects of life on the island or to poke fun at Cubans' hardships. Several feature films produced over the past two decades, with or without state sponsorship, have critiqued issues like homosexuality, exile and social inequality.

But Juan's gleefully mischievous potshots at Cuban sacred cows, from government-controlled media to Fidel Castro himself, are unusually risqué, reflecting a growing freedom in cinema in a country where open criticism of the political system is barely tolerated. Because they're embedded in the constructs of a popular action genre, the film's cheeky gags are ensured a broad audience.

The shifts in Cuba's film industry mirror the broader reality on the island, where President Raúl Castro has gradually reduced the role of the state, cutting subsidies and public-sector jobs and opening space for private enterprise in a bid to salvage the economy.

Filmmakers and moviegoers said the zombie film, Cuba's first, reflected an emerging diversity in Cuban film as less expensive digital technology has allowed an explosion of independent movie production. It also signaled the coming of age of a group of filmmakers who grew up during the post-Soviet era, when the destitute Cuban state lost its near-monopoly on Cuban cinema.

For decades, the state-financed Cuban Institute of Cinematic Art and Industry, controlled the production and distribution of Cuban film and to a large extent defined Cuban cinema, which was viewed as an important pillar of revolutionary spirit. The institute produced some highly acclaimed films, including Tomas Gutiérrez Alea's "Memories of Underdevelopment" in 1968, and the Oscar-nominated "Strawberry and Chocolate," about the relationship between a homosexual man and a committed Communist, in 1993.

But the institute's budget dropped dramatically after the fall of the Soviet Union, and it turned to joint productions with countries like Spain to survive.

The digital revolution, which took off in Cuba over the past 10 years, kindled a surge in independent film, from shorts and video clips to features.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/11/4114298/zombie-film-takes-dead-aim-at.html#ixzz1gHBrJu4d

Ken Gargett · December 12, 2011

i remember years ago being taken to a comedy evening in havana where there would have had to have been 500 people in the crowd, mostly young to mid aged. granted the 'spanish' stuff was beyond me tho it was very clear that they were merciless to fidel and the others. but a lot was 'visual' and it was quite brilliant. they were just as scathing of fidel and his cronies as the states and russia and so on. i was staggered that there was no issue with it at all. perhaps they are more tolerant towards that sort of thing than we realise.