The Sugar Curtain
Wednesday, 25. July 2007, 05:58:09
We're delighted to be opening The Sugar Curtain. This subtle and stirringly ambivalent film ponders the promises and boycotts of the Cuban Revolution, from a decidedly singular perspective. Cuban Socialism may have quite literally saved the life of filmmaker Camila Guzman Urzua. Ms. Guzman Urzua's father, Patricio Guzman, had been a filmmaker closely aligned with deposed Chilean President Salvator Allende; not long after the coup, as Augusto Pinochet's junta ideologically cleansed Chile, Guzman and family made their way to Cuba.
With this background, one might expect Ms. Guzman Urzua to present an extremely positive image of Castro's Cuba. She doesn't. Instead, the film is ambivalent, contrasting Castro's Socialist Dream with that dream's incarnation - particularly with the day-to-day reality of contemporaries who grew up in the 70s and 80s. Though some remain, many - including the director herself - now live elsewhere.
From Ms. Guzman Urzua's frank and personal meetings with these old friends, a subtle and relatively unique image of Cuba appears. The Sugar Curtain is less an ideological talking point for a CNN roundtable than a serious chat among old friends. Thirty years into their lives, they ask: what happened between us? Were we told truths or lies, and, now, are those lies excusable, even if they hurt us? And what about the truths?
Ed Gonzalez puts it well in the Village Voice:
The reviews have generally been positive, and for that of course I am grateful. But one critical oversight is remarkable. No one whom I have read discusses The Sugar Curtain within the context of Patricio Guzman's work. The senior Guzman has, for over thirty years, documented Pinochet's coup and dictatorship, while simultaneously evoking the memory of Salvador Allende with an endless tone of "what if?" What if there had been no U.S.-backed coup? What if Allende had remained President of Chile? What if the Guzman family had stayed in Chile? At a remove, and certainly through metaphor, The Sugar Curtain feels like Ms. Guzman Urzua's response to such conjecture. If there had been no coup, if Allende had remained, and if the Guzman family had stayed in Chile, then maybe their Chile would have resembled the Cuba depicted here.
Would that have been a good thing?
Go to the Pioneer Theater website.
* * *
As a footnote, we're excited about some of the people with whom we're presenting the film. Jonathan Miller of First Run / Icarus Films has brought Patricio Guzman's work to the United States for a long time. Gary Crowdus, of Cineaste magazine and now also working with First Run Icarus Films, has chronicled Cuban and Chilean cinema since about the time Ms. Guzman was born. Crowdus is one of the great, unknown American film critics. Beyond being a fantastic writer and editor, Crowdus consistently sticks to his principles and obsessively delivers fantastic work. We're delighted to present this film with his collaboration, and also with that of Mr. Miller, everyone else at First Run / Icarus Films, and finally our old friends at Cinema Tropical.
With this background, one might expect Ms. Guzman Urzua to present an extremely positive image of Castro's Cuba. She doesn't. Instead, the film is ambivalent, contrasting Castro's Socialist Dream with that dream's incarnation - particularly with the day-to-day reality of contemporaries who grew up in the 70s and 80s. Though some remain, many - including the director herself - now live elsewhere.
From Ms. Guzman Urzua's frank and personal meetings with these old friends, a subtle and relatively unique image of Cuba appears. The Sugar Curtain is less an ideological talking point for a CNN roundtable than a serious chat among old friends. Thirty years into their lives, they ask: what happened between us? Were we told truths or lies, and, now, are those lies excusable, even if they hurt us? And what about the truths?
Ed Gonzalez puts it well in the Village Voice:
"Both love story and memory of underdevelopment, The Sugar Curtain illuminates, with great sobriety and reverence, the paradox of a nation as steeped in tradition as it is in hypocrisy . . . Guzmán Urzúa understands that to be Cuban is to be conflicted."
The reviews have generally been positive, and for that of course I am grateful. But one critical oversight is remarkable. No one whom I have read discusses The Sugar Curtain within the context of Patricio Guzman's work. The senior Guzman has, for over thirty years, documented Pinochet's coup and dictatorship, while simultaneously evoking the memory of Salvador Allende with an endless tone of "what if?" What if there had been no U.S.-backed coup? What if Allende had remained President of Chile? What if the Guzman family had stayed in Chile? At a remove, and certainly through metaphor, The Sugar Curtain feels like Ms. Guzman Urzua's response to such conjecture. If there had been no coup, if Allende had remained, and if the Guzman family had stayed in Chile, then maybe their Chile would have resembled the Cuba depicted here.
Would that have been a good thing?
Go to the Pioneer Theater website.
* * *
As a footnote, we're excited about some of the people with whom we're presenting the film. Jonathan Miller of First Run / Icarus Films has brought Patricio Guzman's work to the United States for a long time. Gary Crowdus, of Cineaste magazine and now also working with First Run Icarus Films, has chronicled Cuban and Chilean cinema since about the time Ms. Guzman was born. Crowdus is one of the great, unknown American film critics. Beyond being a fantastic writer and editor, Crowdus consistently sticks to his principles and obsessively delivers fantastic work. We're delighted to present this film with his collaboration, and also with that of Mr. Miller, everyone else at First Run / Icarus Films, and finally our old friends at Cinema Tropical.
"These comedy things are just not for me," a film critic recently wrote me. I had pitched him to cover our "Comedy Fortnight," a two-week extravaganza of hilarity kicking off tonight. I feel this is a strong and nuanced program. That is why I had pitched him. I figured he might see some value in the program, given his analytical skills for films proper as well as their surrounding contexts. True, he doesn't write about comedy much, and recently he has become ever more harsh and alarmist in his diagnoses of the world of cinema.
WIDGETIZE