Festival

Bitter Sugar

Azucar Amarga (Drama -- B&W)

By ALEX PATTERSON

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An Azucar Films S.A. production. (International sales: Azucar Films, Carlsbad.) Produced by Jaime Pina, Leon Ichaso. Directed by Leon Ichaso. Screenplay, Ichaso, Orestes Matacena.
 
Gustavo - Rene Lavan
Yolanda - Mayte Vilan
Dr. Tomas Valdez - Miguel Gutierrez
Bobby - Larry Villanueva
Mr. Garcia (The Teacher) - Luis Celeiro

 

A love story with serious political concerns, "Bitter Sugar" is set in the declining days of Castro's Cuba. Double-edged plot has a young Fidelista facing two personal crises based in ideological conflict: He's going out with the daughter of a dissident family and is at war with his rebel-rocker brother. Cuban-American director Leon Ichaso weaves fact and fiction, docu and drama, into a decidedly partisan whole that is, in the main, satisfying emotionally and intellectually. "Bitter Sugar" should do reasonably well on the subtitle circuit and has built-in appeal to emigre markets.

Handsome, intelligent but deluded Communist Gustavo (Rene Lavan) has been promised a sojourn in one of the Cuban government's "friendly" Eastern Bloc nations for some higher learning of the Marxist-Leninist variety. While waiting for a trip that may never happen, Gustavo falls for beautiful dancer Yolanda (Mayte Vilan), whose father once ran afoul of the regime and spent eight years in jail.

Gustavo is having problems with his brother, Bobby (Larry Villanueva), a heavy-metal rocker interrogated by authorities for playing unapproved gigs, for hav-ing long hair, for being insufficiently patriotic. (As one character observes, "Bobby's not a bad boy, he's just living in the wrong country.")

The boys' widowed father (Miguel Gutierrez), a psychiatrist reduced to playing cocktail piano for foreigners in a hard-currency hotel, has his own Castro-related dissatisfactions.

Although the Romeo-and-Juliet angle works well enough thanks to sympathetic acting from Lavan and Vilan, equally compelling is the subplot in which the troubled Bobby determines to take the party's slogan, "Socialismo o muerto" (Socialism or death), literally by deliberately injecting himself with AIDS-tainted blood. This self-martyrdom, based on a New York Times report, is a genuinely shocking turn of events, and the thing likely to linger longest in viewers' minds. It certainly makes an officially sanctioned "critique" of the revolution, such as "Strawberry and Chocolate," seem tepid by comparison.

Ichaso ("El Super") is in firmer control here than in his previous pic, the Wesley Snipes drug-dealer meller "Sugar Hill." Although "Bitter Sugar" shares "Sugar Hill's" sibling-rivalry setup, this time the dramatics work much more effectively -- doubtless because the filmmaker is working territory more familiar to him. As in his previous efforts, there's a tendency toward the overwrought, but "Bitter Sugar" is muscular enough to carry most of the weight Ichaso loads upon it.

The same goes for the film's technical execution: Claudio Chea's attractive B&W cinematography nicely serves the director's visual flamboyance, though occasionally Ichaso's grab bag of French New Wave trickery (hand-held and slo-mo camerawork, freeze frames, jump cuts) becomes obtrusive.

The "Miami Vice"-style shooting and editing (Ichaso was one of that show's directors), plus a pair of highly alluring lovers, help make pic palatable to U.S. and Euro auds. Reception among Cuban-American viewers at the Miami Film Festival was raucously enthusiastic.

Because no place looks quite like Havana, some exteriors were lensed on location but pic was primarily shot in the Dominican Republic.

Camera (B&W), Claudio Chea; editor, Yvette Pineyro; music, Manuel Tejeda, Jose Ferro Jr.; production design, Liliana Soto. Reviewed at Miami Film Festival, Feb. 10, 1996. Running time: 102 min.
 

With: Teresa Maria Rojas, Orestes Matacena, Caridad Ravlo, Jorge Pupo.