Cuban filmmaker Fernando Perez
Irina Pino
HAVANA TIMES — Fernando Perez makes auteur cinema*, his unique vision on life in his country is full of symbols and characters who translate his desires, sadness and joy, and they make up a language (another one) to trace our present reality.
After watching Suite Habana (2003), a film without any dialogue, but with powerful visual images, I said to myself: how is he going to beat this movie? Is it a documentary or feature film? The limits don’t really matter, the stories are what’s essential here, the everyday lives of the city’s poorest people.
These are harsh, true stories; the characters were filmed acting out their own lives. Towards the end of the movie, there is an epilogue: where they talk about their dreams. And you have to see the kind of dreams these diverse characters have!
I urge you to go out and look for this beautiful Cuban production, which received the jury prize at the Trieste Film Festival, also winning the Coral prize for best director, and the best soundtrack at the Havana International Latin American Film Festival.
Ultimos dias en La Habana has just premiered in the capital. It has won various international film awards, such as the best Ibero-American movie at the Malaga Film Festival.
It’s worth watching the performance of the leading actors Jorge Martinez and Patricio Wood who “lived as their characters during those days”, and then stop and think: are there really people like them in Old Havana, living together in a rundown building but with great dignity? Are there lives so small yet so great like these ones, which nobody knows about and which many people don’t care about getting to know?
And of course it is possible, reality always outdoes fiction.
Fernando Perez’s latest movie might not be his greatest work but it is shot with forceful images, some of the characters draw you in while others have that certain halo of mystery. But you will laugh, in spite of the tragedy.
*A filmmaker whose individual style and complete control over all elements of production give a film its personal and unique stamp.
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