Year: 1968
Country: Cuba
Language: Spanish
Number: 484
Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment is one of two cuban pictures that is listed in 1001 movies you must see before you dies. For being a communist country one could have the idea that they would delivered a lot of international successes like they did in the Soviet Union. Castro's Cuba had have very few. But one of them is this one, and it even deals with the revolution itself, and is not a propaganda film, but a story about the common man, in a strict and also religious Cuba.
Memories of Underdevelopment takes place in Cuba from 1960 to 1962, during such events as the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the cuban missile crisis. Our protagonist is Sergio Mendoyo, a writer who'm wife have divorced him and gone away to the States. Sergio tries to contain such a normal life as possible. He sleeps with some girl, he reflects over politics, reflects over Ernest Hemingway summer house he had in Cuba. Reflects over the cuban people's underdevelopment, a word that is used multiple of times in this film.
Memories of Underdevelopment is more of a reflecting movie, more than a plot driven film. It's a feature of every day boredom in Cuba. Sergio is in many way very much like Fellini's protagonist Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita. When it comes to the technical part in this film its average, it's full of interesting still images. But it's not more special that any other art movie. Some of the scene can be to long. Surprisingly enough it's not an anti-capitalistic nor a pro-communist film, but a honest one.
Grade: B-
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