If you Google Lucía (1968) by Humberto Solás you might be surprised by how little you find on the net. There is no subject that has escaped the digital information revolution, but this movie seems to slide under the radar more than most. Perhaps this could be attributed to the U.S. embargo of Cuba, but if guys who throw 106 mph fastballs can make it out and be superstars you’d think that several films would also make the cut. Anyhow, Solás’ picture, which is often referred to as a trilogy because of its multiple story structure, deserves some attention. At 160 minutes, this black and white foreign language film isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea (and believe me I had trouble getting into it myself), but I would contend that its quality makes it worthy of wider availability in the States.
The structure presents three separate narratives, with several thematic strands running through them, which effectively bind the whole picture together. The stories, each centering on a woman named Lucía, take place in 1895, 1932, and in the late 1960s, and chronologically follow the progression of both political revolution and feminism in Cuba. What gives the film its life though is not its standpoint on either of these issues, but Solás’ conscious efforts to make each of the stories stylistically unique from the others. These choices set each story apart as its own narrative being, and reinforce the thematic thread of progressive change. They also have the feeling of making the film more accessible to audiences outside of Cuba, whose potentially limited understanding of the politics within the film might be a barrier to sustained interest in a single story or style.
Personally, the 1895 sequences were the most difficult to digest, simply because they were the most melodramatic in tone, and the most misplaced in scope. The first hour of the film wants to be as big as a Hollywood epic about the war for independence from Spain, but the Cuban production was comparatively small and thus feels a bit like a high school production of any romantic play. The words and the costumes are there, but the emotion is muted. Close-ups and montage can convey quite a bit, but sweeping cinematography and elaborate set pieces are called for here, and are only delivered in small doses. The Lucía of this story is a woman who, like Scarlet O’Hara, seems to believe that the world around her is incidental to her own plight in the arena of love.
The most notable sequence in this first story of the “trilogy” concerns the rape of a nun. Seen in flashback, as a woman relates the story to her friends, the camera work and editing recall Eisenstein, and resemble the films of the emerging Brazilian movement of just a few years prior to Lucía. While memorable, I wasn’t able to understand this scene’s purpose in the film. Reflecting now, I think that it must be symbolic of Spain’s perceived Rape of Cuba, but I must reiterate that my understanding of those political relations is limited at best.
The 1932 sequences worked best. They feel like New Wave – what Truffaut or Goddard (early on) might have done with the Cuban movement against the dictatorial Gerardo Machado. The politics took a back seat in the 1895 sequences to the melodramatic love story. Here they seem to blend together more effectively, as this Lucía finds herself drawn to a man for whom the revolution is a way of life. Her feelings of rebellion toward her mother mirror his ideals of political reform, but she may not be as willing as he is to sacrifice for her cause. The heat of Cuba and the Keys feels tangible in this episode, and at times its texture is as gritty as Scarface (1932) or Bonnie and Clyde (1967).
The Lucía of the 1960s finds herself in a different world than her two predecessors. While they were sexually repressed by social norms and the standards of family members, the modern woman has a public relationship with a man, and even insinuates about their escapades to friends. She appears to have found satisfaction from living with him and working as an itinerant produce picker, but her instable relationship and the volatile post-coup political climate make certainty about any future impossible. He wants her to quit working after they marry, but she has come to find comfort in her independence and doesn’t think he has the right to make such demands. This hesitance about the future exemplifies the mood of the final segment, which feels remarkably akin to the Italian cinema of the late 50s and early 60s. Anger and resentment are buried just below the surface of many of the couple’s interactions, and violence and sexuality seem to meld together in some scenes.
Lucía’s triple story structure ultimately seems representative of Cuba’s past, present, and future. While ostensibly the 1960s segment should represent the present, and the 1895 and 1932 segments should represent the literal past, a clue at the outset of the final story perhaps alludes to more. The segment is introduced with a title card reading “196?”. Could this then be the not so distant future? Could the three segment structure be read as meditations on Cuba’s push for independence, the state of violence that persisted for decades, and the possibility of that violence perpetuating itself even into the coming decades? The three love stories at the center of the narrative certainly concern women who cannot live with their men’s past, present, and future respectively, and it’s possible that these trends mirror the political realities of post-revolutionary Cuba. Lucía’s tone seems just elusive enough to suggest that revolution might be an unstoppable force, but that perhaps any change might only bring about more of the same. Women will always fall for men who will bring them sorrow, and political ideologies will never play out to their full potential. Solás seems to suggest that these disappointments are one in the same.
Language: Spanish
Runtime: 160 Minutes
0 comments:
Post a Comment