Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Artimidor Federkiel The critic's dilemma with propaganda films lies in the controversial subject matter and the fact that they are generally made by the crème de la crème of directors - a blessing and a curse. All these films are supposed to convey is a certain political mind-set, the glorification of a person, revolution or regime - in impressive imagery that is, the rest is artistic license. The latter is why directors are carefully chosen for these projects in the first place - their unique style should warrant the film's success. This was the case with Eisenstein's and Dovzhenko's masterpieces in the 1920s/1930s or Riefenstahl's infamous "Triumph of the Will" aestheticising Nazis, and it also applies to Mikhail Kalatozov's "I am Cuba" retracing the Cuban revolution. Interestingly however Kalatozov, whose breathtaking "Cranes are Flying" took the Cannes Grand Prize in 1958, failed in the eyes of the Cubans and the Soviets, who didn't consider it revolutionary enough, too naïve, too stereotypical. Its rediscovery however is well deserved, and it's due to its sublime beauty.More than half a century on much more has remained from "I Am Cuba" than just a historic document tinged by communistic propaganda. Above all it is a poetic portrayal with incredible visuals, a riveting collage of very different lives on the same soil, connected by their love for their country. "I Am Cuba" is a feeling. It comprises the Cuban homeland and a time of upheaval, strong emotions that have bottled up for years and years to finally come to the forefront leading up to inevitable confrontations. The film's perspective still comes across as powerful and relevant, story-wise and camera-wise. Kalatozov films in long takes which are often choreographed with absolute precision, uses stylized high contrast black and white cinematography, extraordinary crane and tracking shots, tilted camera angles and seemingly even moves freely through Havana in one of the most famous continuous camera shots in film history. With his superb technical and cinematic artistry Kalatozov transcends the moment and while his approach wasn't appreciated back in the days, his rediscovery in the 1990s prompted an array of quotes from this work. Indicator enough that Cuba is worth a visit, at least on the silver screen.

Jon Fougner Mikhail Kalatozov's "I Am Cuba" and its production were an exercise in identity. Soviet-made, the film aspires to personify the revolutionary Cuban. It is renowned for its cinematography, which the paucity of dialog leaves to carry a heavy burden. Indeed, the camera itself is a player in this morality play about capitalism and communism. For instance, the opening sequence is a luscious homage to Cuba's unmolested natural expanses and true-to-their-land people. Kalatozov's shots often feel like POV—but whose? Perhaps the most remarkable of these pseudo-POV shots is the one that opens the first vignette, set in a Batista-era pre-Castro rooftop pool party. This Essay takes that shot as a case study for how the cinematography of Kalatozov and his DP Sergei Urusevsky further the identity infomercial that is I Am Cuba.The continuous three-minute-and-fourteen-second one-shot scene opens on an American-style brass band. The hand-held camera weaves among a coterie of barely dancing women whose main function appears to be looking attractive. Then its first magic: face-en-face the railing, it slides down a couple stories—still outdoors—to the pool deck below. This is the first time we're sure that the shot is not POV, unless from the vantage of a levitating deity. Poolside, we meander throw more revelers sipping, sightseeing and sunbathing. We follow one into the water and— magic trick #2—beneath its surface for more flesh and frivolity. Everyone is white. The band plays on.To assemble the puzzle of whose eye the camera stands for, start with the scenes bookending this one. Immediately before, we have the film's very first images—those natural expanses of ocean and earth where folk toil with their hands. They stand for integrity. Immediately after, we're serenaded by a black singing of crazy love. He might have integrity, too, as might the Cuban women in this jazz club, but for the obtuse, uncouth, nasal, illiterate, uncultured, loveless American businessmen ogling them. Soon, we're back on the singer and the hand- held camera is drunk with his love. Once the men get the objects of their shallow affections on the dance floor, the cinematography shakes with an increasingly vertiginous violence—implying that Betty's pangs are of agony, not ecstasy. She's framed by the bamboo rods like an animal in a cage.Thus the sandwich of which the show-off shot by the pool forms the meat is: (1) serene camera documenting an honest people; (2) voyeuristic camera snaking among lackadaisical partyers; (3) intoxicated camera witnessing corruption of culture. Its anthropomorphic feel—from a technical perspective, the result of the hand-held style and medium- close range—results not from identification with the "I" in "I Am Cuba." Instead, the camera is a detective, dedicated to the truthful representation of this island nation in various phases. Sure, it can't help feeling moved by the inevitable emotions of what it captures, but fundamentally it is there as a journalist. For a film so propagandistic, using a documentary style was all the more important to maintain credibility.So back to the Batista-era pool party. Our first hope is that the camera is POV, and we're invited to the party and to rock out with the band. Next up, those dancers—didn't a couple of them make eye contact? Perhaps Kalatozov is being sloppy with the fourth wall here, but more likely he's deliberately stringing us along with our POV theory a bit longer. In any event, that game is up once we float down to the pool, and the road for the audience forks. Either try to enjoy as a voyeur, or resent being excluded. And even if you choose the former path, it usually leads to the second. Kalatozov leaves us underwater, the band finally muted, in a quintessentially voyeuristic and excluded perch. All the while, no one talks to us. No one notices us. We don't exist.Such a pejorative read of the first scene of the first vignette makes all the more sense when that scene is read in counterpoise to the last of the last vignette. That story's hero is trudging through mud and machine guns, fighting the good fight. The juxtaposition could not be starker: sun vs. smoke, music vs. mortars (and music, too—but of a military variety), privilege vs. purpose, frivolity vs. fearlessness, sky vs. soil. Kalatozov's point is that the glory lies in the latter— and, as suggested in the final triumphant frames, that only by winning them the hard way can one enjoy the former.

Galina For the movie made over 40 years ago, Soy Cuba/I Am Cuba/Ya Kuba, is an innovative and very beautiful. I won't be original to mention at least two long scenes in the film that are absolutely brilliant and can be enjoyed on their own over and over again. Besides, these scenes don't have triple narration, just the music that makes them even more impressive. Speaking of the languages presentation, the DVD leaves a lot to be desired. The film is presented with English subtitles, spoken English and Spanish, and Russian voice over which is very annoying. Even though Russian is my native tongue, I looked for the option to turn off the narration but unsuccessfully. With all these voices and subtitles that won't go, you are distracted from the visual beauty of the film which is its best value. I suggest, you go on YouTube, find the rooftop scene and the funeral procession, and watch them in awe, be amazed and fascinated. That's basically all I have to say about Soy Cuba, the propaganda film that was made in 1964 during the victorious days of Fidel Castro Revolution and high hopes for new happy life for the hard working citizens of the Caribbean Paradise Island. Ironically, the film "I Am Cuba", as anti-American propaganda as they ever come, made as a Cuban-Soviet co-production, was not widely released in either pro-Communist country and was almost forgotten until it was restored and presented in the USA in the middle of the 90s by two celebrated American Film Directors, Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola.Of course, I am impressed by its brilliant cinematography, and who would not? I am not going to describe the beautiful insanity of Sergey Urusevskij's camera in the opening scene of the film or its free soar in the funeral procession later into the picture. It's been done hundreds of times already. If you need an explanation on how these impossible camera movements were achieved, go to Soy Cuba Wikipedia page - they have a thorough and detailed description of the shooting process and how it was done. But let me tell you something. If you really want to see a great Soviet film made by the same Director-Cinematographer team, the wonderful, engaging, fascinating, ahead of its time yet truthfully depicting the tragic events of the history FILM, with the shots that are included in the text books, with the poignant touching story, with the real characters that you never forget, watch Mikhail Kalatozov's B/W film "Cranes are flying" which he and his genius cinematographer Sergei Urusevskij made in 1957. Cranes Are Flying has never become outdated and never will. It will stay unforgettable and compelling as well as cinematographically perfect as long as the Art of Cinema lives. Cranes are Flying is timeless. Soy Cuba is a product of certain time period and its politics. It is not even the problem that the film is a shameless propaganda. The propaganda can be powerful and artistic. Watch for example ten minutes long animated film of Jan Svankmajer "The End of Stalinism in Bohemia". One of the reviewers on this site is asking "How did they dare to make such a film in 1963?" I guess the answer is that by 1963 the short period in the history of the USSR which is known as "thaw" or "ottepel'" that began after Stalin's death in 1953, was over. The 60s represented the return to the Stalinism aesthetics even if officially it had never been admitted. It would take another quarter of the century until the truth about some events and politics was finally told during the "perestroika" in the late 1980s and after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. IMO, Soy Cuba is overall a weak film with very creative virtuoso cinematography. I suppose that the Film Students will learn a lot from its technical values but it is a film with the parts much better than the whole thing.

MacAindrais I Am Cuba (1964) A breathtaking marvel of cinematography. Mikhail Kalatozov's I am Cuba, a joint production between Soviet and Cuban filmmakers, remains an astounding visual success, with its inventive and freewheeling camera style that went on to influence so many. So legendary is the films style that a great many filmmakers today likely do not even realize that they've been influenced by it through the work of other directors such as Martin Scorcese.The film, a hyper stylised perhaps propaganda film (although the film was berated on both sides - by the Russians as too sympathetic to Americans, by the West as entirely unsympathetic to Americans), it flows (and really is there a better word to describe this?) through a series of vignettes, dealing rebellious youths to slimy members of Western bourgeoisie.One could discuss the incredible long and free form shots, moving up and down buildings, in and out of water, soaring over crowded city streets - it is a technical marvel, at its release and even still today. The stories often get left out of discussion because of this, but it should be noted that they are quite powerful and moving, and propaganda or not, they express some profound tellings of the eploitative relationship between the wealthy American business class and the Bastista dictatorship.Whatever your political leaning, I am Cuba is an unquestioned masterpiece and innovator of the visual language of cinema.