Not so veiled critique of the regime: 1) that photography cannot show how the people are suffering inside themselves; 2) that the mother dies in childbirth (a real low blow to a regime that touts its public health achievements); 3) the call for Cuba to start anew, casting off "symbolically" the "baggage" of its the past; 4) the revelation that the daughter of the Havana fisherman is actually the genetic daughter of the Miami Cuban (named "Jesus"), suggesting the redemptive power of the Cuban exile community, etc., etc.
The best thing one can say about this movie is that it demonstrates the cunning of the regime. Get a filmmaker who wants to make a movie with an anti-regime allegorical twist to it--but choose one who will create a movie in which the wretched acting, the cheezy musical score, the uninspired camera work, and the banal and tortured plot will all ensure that the movie has no audience. A double victory for the regime: 1) it demonstrates that filmmakers can indeed criticize the regime and continue to work as artists in its pay; 2) the inevitable box office failure of this piece of smarmy dreck in the "West" demonstrates once again the West's utter artistic bankruptcy: its obeisance to crass commercial criteria precludes distribution of a film with a political and allegorical flair to it.
The best thing one can say about this movie is that it demonstrates the cunning of the regime. Get a filmmaker who wants to make a movie with an anti-regime allegorical twist to it--but choose one who will create a movie in which the wretched acting, the cheezy musical score, the uninspired camera work, and the banal and tortured plot will all ensure that the movie has no audience. A double victory for the regime: 1) it demonstrates that filmmakers can indeed criticize the regime and continue to work as artists in its pay; 2) the inevitable box office failure of this piece of smarmy dreck in the "West" demonstrates once again the West's utter artistic bankruptcy: its obeisance to crass commercial criteria precludes distribution of a film with a political and allegorical flair to it.
