Movie relationship with book - Essay Example

Latin American on Film ‘Soy Cuba’ is a film that shows the relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union. The phrase means I am Cuba and the film’s director is Mikhail Kalatozov. The release date of the film was in 1964. Neither the Cubans nor the Russians accepted the film well. The film distribution seized after a week of its release by the countries’ film industries that the state controlled. The screening of the film happened thirty years later in the US through Pacific Film. The emergence of the film was during Fidel Castro’s reign.

He had just taken control of the Cuban government and he thought film was the best way to communicate to the public. He created the ICAIC, which was a film office officially managed by the government. Many of the Cuban farmers were illiterate and television was not a part of their lives. Fidel decided that film production would be the best way to educate the country on the dramatic transformation related to the revolution. However, Cuba’s film industry was relatively insignificant unlike Argentina and Mexico.

The new office needed to learn a lot before production (Chanan, 5). During this time, the USSR was providing film production support under Prime Minister Khrushchev for any friendly countries to the principles of Communism. This is how the relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union in film production evolved. During this time, the United States had isolated the Cuban government in the event of the missile crisis. Cuban post-revolutionary cinema shows how filmmaking in the country is hardly ever automatic and predictable.

The United States tried to isolate Cuba for almost two decades by imposing a cultural and economic barrier. However, the Cuban cinema continued to succeed in breaching the cultural block to emphasize their creative energy and political integrity (Chanan, 7). The ‘Soy Cuba’ film did not have any English subtitles. What captured the attention of many was its amazing cinematography. The techniques of the camera used at the time shocked many reviewers because they resembled those of the steadicam before its emergence.

The beauty of the film lies in the idiosyncratic mise en scene and camera acrobatics (Chanan, 21). The director shot some of the scenes close to the actors, while they avoided any direct focus with the camera. The movement of the camera to produce wide-angle shots gives the film great scenes and an outlook on the revolution. The director also divided the story into four sections to capture different perspectives. The director was a soviet and had no knowledge about the Cuban culture. He visited and explored the country before production of the film (Chanan, 20).

They had a more close experience of the revolution, culture and language of Cubans. The release of the film received a negative reaction because the Cubans believed the film captured a stereotypical outlook of Cubans. The director felt that the Cuban revolution was less violent than other revolutions around the world. This may have reflected in his film and the reason why the Russians thought the film did not show enough revolution, they considered it naïve. The film was a communist idea and did not get to western countries, which is why it collapsed with the collapse of USSR.

However, the communists themselves had different reasons for their negativity towards the film. Mikhail Kalatozov used the film as way to express his personal views and political beliefs towards the Cuban revolution (Chanan, 23). Works CitedChanan, M. The Cuban Cinema. University of Minnesota Press, 2004. 1-25. Print.