I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba) poster & wallpaper
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Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood, Jose Gallardo, Raul Garcia, Luz Maria Collaso ... see more see more... , Jean Bouise , Alberto Morgan , Celia Rodriguez , Fausto Mirabal , Roberto Garcia York , Nina Nikitina , Georgiy Yepifantsev

An unabashed exercise in cinema stylistics, I Am Cuba is pro-Castro/anti-Batista rhetoric dressed up in the finest clothes. The film's four dramatic stories take place in the final days of the Batista... read more read more... regime; the first two illustrate the ills that led to the revolution, the third and fourth the call to arms which cut across social and economic lines. A lovely young woman in a nightclub frequented by crass American businessmen takes a customer to her modest seaside shack for a night of pleasure for pay, only to be found out by her street vendor suitor; a tenant farmer is told that his crop has been sold to United Fruit and in frustration burns his fields; a middle-class student rallies his pals and workers in a street demonstration against the regime; a peasant eking out a living in the mountains quickly converts to the cause when Batista bombers strafe his land in search of rebel fighters. At face value, this is all obvious agitprop, but director Mikhail Kalazatov turned his cinematographer, Sergei Urusevsky, loose, and the result is a procession of dazzling black-and-white images, shot with a camera that is almost always moving and soaring over the sugar fields, swooping in and out of urban buildings, following characters down narrow streets. Unreleasable to American theaters during the Cold War, I Am Cuba, through the auspices of filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, got a belated U.S. release in 1995 and has proved to be both a time capsule of a fading political movement and a timeless work of cinematic art. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

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90% liked it

4,133 ratings

Critics

100% liked it

32 critics

Unrated, 2 hr. 20 min.

Directed by: Mikhail Kalatozov

Release Date: March 8, 1995

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DVD Release Date: January 18, 2000

Stats: 311 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (311)

  • fb100002359227440
    May 9, 2011
    fb100002359227440
    A revolutionary cinematographic! Astounding film! Beautiful black and white photography, Kalatozov use a magnificently camera movements plan sequence. Visually hypnotic, great storys with politic and poetry, the fight for a revolution and free oneself of a dictatorial goverment.
  • kenstachnik
    July 14, 2009
    kenstachnik
    Manipulative? Yes
    Propaganda? Yes
    Breathtaking? Absolutely.

    An absolute must see for fans of cinematography. Most of the film is composed of full mag single takes. It's like Children of Men on on meth.

    This film inspired PT Anderson's long steadi-cam shot that goes into the po... read moreol in Boogie Nights.
  • harrycaul
    January 13, 2009
    harrycaul
    Whatever this Soviet-Cuban co-production's failings as a piece of propaganda, as an exercise in bravura camerawork it is simply astonishing. The film was badly received in both the U.S.S.R. and in Cuba, where it was accused of being too soft on capitalism and even of having a cou... read morenter-revolutionary agenda! It's not difficult to see why, particularly in the first episode - in which three slimy U.S. businessmen draw lots for a reluctant prostitute - which fairly revels in the very 'decadence' it is supposed to be condemning.

    The second story also concerns the perceived exploitation of Cuba by the United States, as a sugar farmer's land is sold out from under him to an American fruit importer. Once again, an intended dig at the capitalists next door is nullified by what I consider to be the most joyous scene in the whole picture: relaxing after a hard day's work in the sugar field, a brother and sister drink bottles of Coke and dance to jukebox music.

    If the film's attitude toward the U.S. is surprisingly ambivalent, it's genuine fury is reserved for the regime of the overthrown General Batista, in episodes three and four, as the revolution gathers momentum. Despite the fact that third story climaxes with perhaps the most stunning individual shot in the entire movie, I generally found the second half of I Am Cuba less visually arresting than the first; I guess decadence must be more cinematic than ideological browbeating. I enjoyed the soundtrack a lot!
  • bbcfloridabound
    December 22, 2008
    bbcfloridabound
    I really didn't enjoy this one as much as I enjoy other foregin flix. The Secenes were great, but the story line just didn't do much for me, maybe if I was cuban, not sure though. You try it out see what you think.
  • dhetteix
    November 10, 2007
    dhetteix
    Almost sublime cinematography and storytelling. Half of the movie makes you wonder simply about how the cameraman got those shots.

    One masterful sequence detailing a parade/rally, has the camera being placed on a clothesline and carefully pullied over the crowds while being stab... read morealized so there is little jitter.

    The effects gained with this sublime (albiet obviously propaganda) film are a wonder to behold. Americas propaganda was blunt and crude, but here we find something worth watching beyond its political message.
  • gator681
    September 18, 2005
    gator681
    [font=Century Gothic]"I Am Cuba" is a beautiful film about pre-revolution Cuba. In the prologue, we see rural Cuba and an off-screen narrator mentions Christopher Columbus. After that, the movie has four episodes which involve a dance hall girl, an old farmer and his family, an... read more activist in the city and a fateful encounter between a rebel soldier and a peasant. Throughout the movie, we are moving from cause to effect, from oppresion(some of which rightly gets blamed on the United States) to activism to rebellion to outright revolution. Mikhail Kalatazov takes what Sergei Eisenstein did forty years before in the Soviet Union and improves on the model by not only using memorable images but also well-formed characters. It also serves as a perfectly good lesson on how to turn product placement on itself. Throughout, "I Am Cuba" serves as a good reminder that you need to be fighting for positive change, not only in reaction against oppression.[/font]
  • lesleyanorton
    July 23, 2009
    lesleyanorton
    B&W set of four stories about Cuba filmed with a communist eye, and a collaboration between Cuba and the USSR. Absolutely beautiful film-making - but I just couldn't engage with it. So those two hours, twenty one minutes felt soooo looonnnnggg. One of those films I should like ... read morebut don't ... *sigh*. Which means if you want to see it, ignore this review, and see it and you'll love it.
  • littlecharmer1959
    January 7, 2009
    littlecharmer1959
    Breathtaking! I am Cuba, directed by Mikheil Kalatozishvili, and made in collaboration between the Soviet Union and Cuba, follows four different lives. Starting with a Havana prostitute, and then a farmer losing his land, student rebels, and finally a poor farmer accepting to joi... read moren revolutionary army. Yes, it's Communist propaganda, but let's put the political issues to one side for a moment. The cinematography and camera work is some of the best I've ever seen. The long shots are amazing and the crisp black and white really captures the beauty of Cuba. The famous opening shot going through the party and down the side of the building is particularly great and has clearly been influential to other directors. Anyone who's seen it may enjoy this unique and humorous tribute of it I came across :P
    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NfO6okjs0cg
  • jsbond008
    July 4, 2009
    jsbond008
    Yo Soy Cuba is perhaps the most extensive take on a Latin American countries intricate struggles and shows so many angles of such. The cinemtography will be talked about until cinema dies. it's too phenomenal to ever be replicated.

    Learning that the film was soviet made to sprea... read mored awareness of the good of communism around the globe makes it the best propaganda film ever made.

    ?you are firing at your past you are firing to protect your future.?
  • philliprenke
    January 15, 2009
    philliprenke
    A propaganda film from Cuba early in Castro's revolution, this film was directed and shot by Russian filmmakers. This movie didn't become available in the US until 1995. We are lucky to be able to see this film because as it turns out the Russian filmmakers created a very artisti... read morec, somewhat trippy at times, beautiful cinematic masterpiece.

View All I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba) Reviews

Critic Reviews

Jonathan Rosenbaum
September 17, 2007
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Some of the most exhilarating camera movements and most luscious black-and-white cinematography you'll ever see inhabit this singular, delirious 141-minute communist propaganda epic. Full Review

G. Allen Johnson
September 30, 2005
G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle

It is one of the most visually hypnotic films ever -- and that's not hyperbole. Full Review

Michael Atkinson
September 13, 2005
Michael Atkinson, Village Voice

The resulting assault is so epicly impassioned it's less about Cuba per se than the fusillade of movement, shadow, light, vertigo, and landscape on the viewer's tender optic nerves. Full Review

Stephen Holden
January 15, 2005
Stephen Holden, New York Times

It is a dream of life in which everything is reduced to black and white. Or as the rhetoric used to go, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Nothing was ever quite that simple. Full Review

Carina Chocano
February 21, 2001
Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times

In a sense, it's a movie about looking past surfaces to see what's in front of you. It takes the time to look around and discovers majesty, beauty and pathos everywhere it turns. Full Review

Edward Guthmann
February 21, 2001
Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle

One of the most stylistically vigorous films of all time. Full Review

Roger Ebert
February 21, 2001
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

As an example of lyrical black and white filmmaking, it is still stunning. If you see it, try to figure out how the camera floated down that wall. Full Review

Ken Hanke
March 2, 2011
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

One of the most technically impressive films of its time, and one of the most politically naive. Full Review

Anthony Holden
April 20, 2009
Anthony Holden, Film4

A work of dazzling cinematographic invention that still has the ability to astound. Full Review

Sean Axmaker
February 5, 2008
Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies Online

Politics, propaganda and poetry are whipped into an exotic cinematic cocktail in Mikhail Kalatozov's delirious tribute to the Cuban revolution... Full Review

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