Culture

The film is about families displaced by the building of the Three Gorges Dam, one of the biggest in the world, and the effects it has not only on the geography. We know that they all will adapt to their new life, some faster than others.

People get out of classes or work and rush to get to the theater on time. Those of us that have been at the movies since the morning also want to enter. So what you get is a huge crowd. The Havana Film Festival continues through December 14.

Bamako, a magnificent film by Abderrahmane Sissako (Mali), uses fiction to critique the unemployment and exploitation that the African continent has lived through, as well as the suffering and humiliation of its peoples.

When you feel fear, you close your eyes; when you feel pain, you close your eyes; when something unexpected happens, you close our eyes.

Those of us that entered the Riviera Theater to learn about Iranian customs never imagined what the film by Samira Makhmalbaf was about. Not even the attractive synopsis induced you to think about human evil as a fundamental element of this story.

Hundreds of films from around the world are being shown at the 30th Havana Film Festival, but the one that took Cuba’s capital by storm was “Che” a four-hour two-part film by US director Steven Soderbergh staring Benicio del Toro as the revolutionary icon.

The security guard at the entrance to the rotating exhibit hall of the Cuban National Museum of Fine Arts has a new mission: inspect the faces of the visitors to make sure that 15 to 17 year-olds don’t enter the hall. Why? Because the exposition being shown there under the title: “Erotica: Sexuality and Eroticism” is only for adults (18 years or older).

A memory came to mind from when I was a student; the attraction exerted by Che, his life and the legend that surrounded him. Later I grew up and I understood that legends are made. In any case, seeing all those people waiting to enter the movie theater was quite moving.

The young escape from daily life by crossing borders through amphetamines; the old through gambling, new age philosophy, sex in public places. Nobody seems to have any goals, except Arturo, a 60-year-old taxi driver who tries to save enough money to bring his son back from the United States.

When the Havana Film Festival agreed to show Steven Soderbergh’s production, the foreign press speculated that it must have received former president Fidel Castro’s approval. Che is revered by government leaders, much of the general citizenry, as well as by people who see in him ideals they think have been sidetracked over 50 years of the ups and downs of revolution.