By Stephen Holden, The New York Times. Jan. 7, 2000
Rolando Diaz's documentary "If You Only Understood" is a frustrating movie about frustration. As the filmmaker explains off camera at the beginning of the film, his dream was to make an original Cuban musical in Havana, but the financing fell through.
Still determined to complete some sort of movie, he puts out a casting call for nonprofessional Cuban singers and aspiring actresses to audition for a musical project he knows will never come to fruition. The candidates, who are videotaped, are not told that barring a miracle, the film for which
they're auditioning is just a dream.
As the director interviews eight young women for the leading role of Barbara (a character inspired by the Yoruban goddess of thunder, music and dance), the movie compiles a mosaic portrait of life in Cuba's beautiful but decaying capital, where the sidewalks teem with the impoverished and idle
standing in doorways waiting for the future to descend.
Although the women choose their words carefully and refrain from overt criticism of the Communist government, most express varying degrees of frustration at the hardships, deprivation and a sense of lost opportunity in Fidel Castro's Cuba.
We meet Joanna, an attractive young model who ticks off a list of her idols, led by Naomi Campbell. But what chance does she stand for runway glory in a country as small and poor as Cuba? Ivette, who studied industrial engineering in Russia, finds her training useless in her homeland and wants
only to be a barmaid in a club with access to American dollars.
We visit the women's dingy apartments where everything is breaking down and hear the complaints of people who feel abandoned by the government and left behind by history.
"If You Only Understood," which opens Friday in New York City, reveals much about the disconsolate mood and the crumbling living conditions in Havana. But it is a disorganized film that jumps from person to person and rarely probes deeply enough into its subjects' lives for them to be
memorable.
For all the frustrations vented, the women, who bond into a rudimentary musical-comedy troupe, display a joie de vivre when singing and dancing that momentarily eclipses their pessimism.
Production Notes:
'IF YOU ONLY UNDERSTOOD'
Written and directed by Rolando Diaz; in Spanish, with English subtitles; director of photography, Jose Manuel Riera; edited by Jorge Abello; produced by Diaz and Ileana Garcia. Released by First Run/Icarus Films. Running time: 87 minutes. This film is not rated. |