Post #232330 by bigbrotiki on Tue, May 16, 2006 2:50 PM

It is exactly this schizophrenic message that makes this film so endearing to me- I once called it THE best Tiki Bar scene ever captured on film- the irony being that it was meant by the filmmakers as a condemnation!

It ultimately proves that true ART transcends politics: The director and cinematographer came from a cold, forbidding country, and they were seduced by the Cuban sensuality to create something beyond propaganda, even though they were convinced they were supporting the class struggle with their work. They took TWO YEARS to shoot this movie, what THEY thought was their masterwork, and it changed them.

But, what irony, the film was a FLOP in the communist world: In Cuba, the Cubans thought it was an over-dramatizing cliched way of portraying them, and in Russia, the Russian party members thought it was way too fun-loving, so it was shelved. So the director and cinematographer died thinking their opus had been a failure!

To ad to the irony, if you check some of the contemporary internet reviews of the film, some Americans complain about the cliche way THEIR countrymen are portrayed as loud, insensitive buffoons, while others, who have been abroad, concur that such portrayals are sadly accurate.

Which brings me back to my LOVE for cliches, and my belief in their intrinsic folk/pop wisdom, because they are based on truth.

Which brings me back to the mixed Spanish/Russian narration as being an essential surrealist element of the film, which, much like the Brechtian concept of viewer alienation, allows you to step back and see the work of art from a standpoint of bewildered wonderment.....which is my attitude towards Tiki in general.

This film is a testament that if there is one TRUTH, it is ART, not ideology, because the "ideologies" in this example are right AND wrong, proving that there is no simple Black and White reality, as many a leader will want you to believe, but that to embrace duality is much closer to life....

Whew, see what a couple of hours of overwork and some Hefeweizen can do to you....