CINEMA-CUBA: Cheers and Jeers for ‘Life is a Whistle’

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Dec 15 1998 (IPS) - ‘La Vida es Silbar’ – or ‘Life is a Whistle’ by Cuban director Fernando Perez won four first prizes at a prestigious film festival here this month but critics remained divided over the controversial movie.

‘La Vida es Silbar’ received the prizes for best feature film, best director, best photographer (Raul Perez Ureta) and best new female actress (Claudia Rojas) on Dec. 11 at the 20th Festival of New Latin American Cinema.

Perez is no newcomer to the award-winning scene. He previously was honoured with the Makhila Gold Prize in Biarritz, France, the special jury prize at the Havana Film Festival and an award at the Troia International Exhibition in Portugal for his previous film, ‘Madagascar’, produced in 1994.

While ‘Madagascar’ took a hard look at generation issues in Cuba, ‘La Vida es Silbar’ recreates the lives of three people – a ballerina, a female social worker and a man living on the fringes – as they try to find happiness.

“I film so as to unleash emotions and make people think,” says Perez.

Against the background of urban Havana, the film portrays the anxieties of a city in the midst of a severe economic crisis, but also a city that has its values and its dreams. The way to be happy in Havana in the year 2020 is to whistle. In the meantime, Havana residents swoon as they hear words like “sex”, “double standards” “freedom” and “truth.”

“We see things not as they are but as we are,” explains Perez, who argues that the controversy ‘La Vida es Silbar’ has set off shows that, even though it was heavily edited, “the film is still alive”.

Still citical opinion remained mixed.

“It’s a wonderful film, it’s a born classic of the national cinema,” enthused national TV critic Luciano Castillo. Armando Chavez, a commentator at the Cuban news agency, Prensa Latina, considers ‘La Vida es Silbar’ outstanding because of its “magnificent artistry” and “a philosophical underpinning that will take a lot of time to reduce to bite size and digest”.

But Roland Perez Betancourt, critic at the daily newspaper Granma – the official organ of the Communist Party – was less than impressed by the award-winning production. “The plot is enmeshed in too many different themes,” he says.

“Because of the cumbersome moments and the host of symbols, you need a decoder at the entrance of the cinema,” Perez Betancourt wrote. “The reflexive, ethical, social and even political intentions of the film (are diluted in) a sea of confused navigation.

“It’s not a matter of saying things, it’s all about saying them well, linking them properly and with a coherence of intentions that should in no way be sacrificed to the artistic complexity to which all creators aspire.”

Generally, however, the film has been received as a pleasant surprise in Cuban intellectual circles – still scarred by the criticism unleashed in February by President Fidel Castro against moveies tyhat were critical of Cuban realities.

A later meeting between Castro and a group of artists and intellectuals did clear the air and confirmed that the island’s cultural policy was open to all trends and forms of expression of contemporary art.

Still, ‘La Vida es Silbar’ has drawn much attention because it shrugs off the criticisms put forward by Castro.

Most of the awards at this year’s festival went to productions from Cuba, Argentinia, Colombia and Brazil. Almost all the Mexican films were a disappointment to spectators and critics who had become accustomed to seeing them romp home with prizes in previous years.

Second prize for feature films went to ‘El Viento se llevo lo que’ (The Wind Took it Away’) by Argentinian director Alejandro Agresti, and third prize to ‘La vendedora de rosas’ (‘The Rose Vendor’) by Colombian Victor Gaviria.

Chile copped all the prizes for documentaries with ‘Fernando ha vuelto’ (Fernando has returned) by Silvio Caiozzi, ’11 de septiembre 1973, el ultimo combate de Salvador Allende’ (11 September 1973, Salvador Allende’s last fight) by Patricio Henriquez, and ‘Patio 29: historias de silencio’ (Lot 29; Stories of Silence) by Esteban Larrain.

Best male actor went to Argentina’s Victor Laplace in ‘Secretos Compartidos’ (Shared Secrets) while the best opera and best music and sound prizes went to another Argentinian film, ‘La sonambula’ (The Sleepwalker) by Fernando Spinner.

Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Cuba are the four countries that have won the most first prizes since the festival was started in 1978.

The directors that have received the most awards are: Juan Carlos Tabio, Orlando Rojas and Fernando Perez (Cuba); Maria Luisa Bemberg, Juan Jose Jusid and Fernando Solana (Argentina); Mexico’s Arturo Ripstein and Francisco Lombardi of Peru.