As Jorgito(Jorge Milo) and Malu(Malu Tarrau Broche) sit on a rooftop and contemplate the young girl's impending departure from Cuba, the camera moves. One-hundred-eighty degrees later, the camera rests on the backs of their heads. We're looking with them, from their point-of-view, towards an uncertain future(for Malu, a faraway land across the ocean); not at them, in which we laugh condescendingly about the melodramatic proclamations that young people make about being inseparable. They'll survive the break-up. We know that. Some of us went through the same ordeal ourselves at that tender age. The camera moves as a way of representing the past and the future. But after the tears stop flowing, with the camera at repose, Malu's head turns towards Jorgito and asks him to run away with her. This gesture, this hatched plan of Malu's, places them in the present. Right here, right now, these close friends decide that they won't be split up without a fight.
No matter how hard the school and the children's parents try to instill their political views upon Jorgito and Malu, politics never comes close to tearing them apart. This is best exemplified when the movie irises in on the boy and girl as they walk home from school, taking them out of context, out of Cuba, and into a world where only they exist; a world in which they are equals. As actual denizens of Cuba, however, Jorgito and Malu aren't equals(the boy is proletarian; the girl is bourgeoisie). "Viva Cuba" demonstrates this Havana reality at the outset when Jorgito is on his knees while Malu towers over him. But then Jorgito stands up so he's facing his friend, but still, in spite of the children's apolitical relationship, Malu remains taller(a reminder of their economical disparity). Malu wants to be the Queen of Spain, an absolute monarch, but because the girl comes off as disarmingly sweet and unpretentious, you give her the benefit of the doubt. She's just bossy; not a demagogue.
"Viva Cuba" is a terrific rite-of-passage film that beautifully captures a passionate friendship of platonic love between opposite sexes which could only exist without the base culture of the west hastening their advancement towards a pre-pubescent sexual attraction. CGI effects service the genre of magic realism, not science-fiction this time, and the results are breathtaking. But "Viva Cuba" would be nothing without its outstanding performances by Jorge Milo and Malu Tarrau Broche, who in the best tradition of neo-realism, are natural and never less-than-real.
No matter how hard the school and the children's parents try to instill their political views upon Jorgito and Malu, politics never comes close to tearing them apart. This is best exemplified when the movie irises in on the boy and girl as they walk home from school, taking them out of context, out of Cuba, and into a world where only they exist; a world in which they are equals. As actual denizens of Cuba, however, Jorgito and Malu aren't equals(the boy is proletarian; the girl is bourgeoisie). "Viva Cuba" demonstrates this Havana reality at the outset when Jorgito is on his knees while Malu towers over him. But then Jorgito stands up so he's facing his friend, but still, in spite of the children's apolitical relationship, Malu remains taller(a reminder of their economical disparity). Malu wants to be the Queen of Spain, an absolute monarch, but because the girl comes off as disarmingly sweet and unpretentious, you give her the benefit of the doubt. She's just bossy; not a demagogue.
"Viva Cuba" is a terrific rite-of-passage film that beautifully captures a passionate friendship of platonic love between opposite sexes which could only exist without the base culture of the west hastening their advancement towards a pre-pubescent sexual attraction. CGI effects service the genre of magic realism, not science-fiction this time, and the results are breathtaking. But "Viva Cuba" would be nothing without its outstanding performances by Jorge Milo and Malu Tarrau Broche, who in the best tradition of neo-realism, are natural and never less-than-real.