This Is Cuba

 ((Docu))

By ALEX PATTERSON

An Aspect Ratio/Una Chica Entertainment presentation of a Shoot and Run production. Produced by Ron Moler. Directed by Chris Hume. Screenplay, Hume, Florence Figueroa, Moler.
 

Narrator: Chris Hume.

Although barely more than an hour long, "This Is Cuba" is a fast-moving, smartly edited and politically savvy docu in the style of Michael Moore's "Roger & Me": a no-budget guerrilla agitation as stimulating as it is unexpected. Chris Hume is an American tourist who spent last year running around the Communist stronghold with a Hi-8 camcorder, shooting whatever caught his eye. Now that his store-bought tapes have been blown up to 16mm and retrofitted with music, professional-looking credits and subtitles, the result possesses value beyond the merely voyeuristic.

Cameras in the hands of U.S. citizens have chronicled wrongdoing at home, from Zapruder's inadvertent coverage of the JFK assassination to the homevideo of Rodney King. Now, a young Californian has captured damning evidence of the state of the Cuban Revolution, year 37. The crutch of Soviet aid pulled out from under it, the country's economy has gone from bad to abysmal: hours-long waits for food are now in vain; prices are impossibly high and wages ludicrously low. Castro calls it the "special period," as though there were some end in sight.

Meanwhile, as "This Is Cuba" demonstrates, repression contin-ues unabated -- as does the flow of boat people desperately seeking Florida through shark-infested waters. Amid crumbling housing and dilapidated American cars are ubiquitous murals of Castro, Che Guevara and Lenin -- the only projects, Hume wryly notes, "for which the government can still find paint." Even annual May Day orgies of self-congratulation have been scaled back: There's no longer enough fuel to parade the hardware.

Hume provides voiceover narration, and occasionally shows up onscreen to illustrate some prickly point. His commentary is insightful, though over-reliant on sarcasm and heavy-handedness. He's yet to master the deadpan delivery and ironic detachment that make Moore such an effective provocateur.

There also are brief but revealing interviews with citizens, often silhouetted or otherwise obscured, who testify to the indignities large and small that constitute everyday life on the island. What little "balance" the film can claim comes in the form of (unconvincing) apologies from representatives of the estimated 20% of the population who still support Havana's bearded supremo. Added topicality comes from Hume's sessions with organizers and pilots of Miami-based emigre organization Brothers to the Rescue, whose planes Cuba recently shot down over the Florida Straits.

Considering it was done on consumer equipment, the celluloid transfer is technically solid. Sound and visuals are not luxurious, but certainly adequate. What Hume has done with his footage, however, transcends the utilitarian: He has arranged his facts in a way that's not only cogent and informative but that approaches the sweep of narrative.

At the recent Miami Film Festival, "Cuba" shared a bill with the entertaining "Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella," a half-hour conga docu by veteran ethnographer Les Blank. The two helmers currently are discussing whether their works might be more permanently paired for theatrical distribution rather than stick with their original intentions of tube sales. Although edu-TV seems the obvious destination, product is strong enough that there may be (limited) bigscreen potential in exile strongholds such as southern Florida and California.

Camera (color, Hi-8 video to 16mm), Hume; editor, Hume; music, Efrain Figueroa. Reviewed at Miami Film Festival, Feb. 11, 1996. Running time: 64 min.