Popular reviews

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  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★½ 2

  We're losing our shit for CGI long takes when this movie exists?

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  Review by reibureibu ★★★★★ 70

  Capitalism now benefits from having successfully colonized much of the world, and I'd wager the vast majority of users on this site cannot even truly comprehend an alternative ideology outside of theoreticals (me included ofc). And unfortunately, this lack of alternative to capitalism doesn't seem to be considered an issue, or rather, its complete subjugation over the Western world that occupies every aspect of the thinkable is simply taken for granted, no longer worthy of comment. Not only are our every desires are already pre-formatted by capitalist culture, but even anti-capitalist thought has been commodified, pre-wrung through the capitalist wash and spat back out at us as a product to buy.

  Take Disney / Pixar's Wall-E. It's a film that…

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 15

  One day, they might tell stories like this about us. If we keep fighting, one day, they will look back and see only the distortions of us and our struggle, only the broad strokes, and they will be so enamored with our victories that they make something as alive and wondrous as this to celebrate us. The story will not be exactly the same. The tourists who steal treasures and callously dismiss the women they use would not be outsiders, not some foreigners on our soil, partying and unleashing their unabashed, clawing, taking ids. Those descended of European settlers are the invaders here. No revolution here can realize true communism unless that legacy is addressed somehow.

  But the landlords will…

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  Review by aleph beth null ★★★★★ 11

  just yesterday i repeated that joke—you know, ‘we need to take care of the world we’re leaving to fidel castro’—and desperately prayed he’d hold out at least ’til the end of the year. a great number of 2016’s deaths have hit me hard, but none have made me sob so openly as his.

  so i chose to remember him with this, the purest and most extravagant expression of emotion i’ve ever seen committed to film, and thus it came to pass that i completely broke down at ‘you’re not old, papa. you’re not old!’, and then again at ‘they killed fidel castro’, and then all over again at ‘fidel? i am fidel!’

  la historia te absolverá, lovely. la historia te ha absuelto.

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  Review by reibureibu ★★★★★ 11

  Ignoring everything else about this film, it's a miracle this was re-discovered in 1992 after being forgotten since being made. That something as significant as this (in all its definitions) was essentially unknown for nearly three decades despite being so far ahead of everything else at the time is tragic, but more than that it invokes an image of the world where some of our most important works had been lost to time: a world without, say, Vertigo or Tokyo Story or Stalker or 2001, all made near the same time as this and forever canonized in our world but what if they had not? What would that world look like without the influence of such films? Likewise, I'm sure…

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★★ 4

  The floating, lyrical camerawork was as rich and dizzyingly gorgeous as advertised but I was particularly struck by how this flows and builds its revolutionary momentum as a whole, turning what should be a series of disconnected vignettes (at least in terms of individual characters) and developing so many kinetic visual patterns and intense feelings that they tell a passionate story of an entire place and its people. There's 1) the literal high & low-class divide drawn not just via the rooftop parties vs. the muddy slums but also spectacular high and low angle lensing throughout, 2) the insanely choreographed formal musicality that with long-take images in expressive, sprawling aerial motion eventually revealing the power of an organized collective as practically…

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  Review by Dirk Diggler ★★★★★

  I Am Cuba is a propaganda piece, and it shows, but it transcends that and becomes genuine cinematic art with strong humanism by its poetic storytelling. Its rather straight-forward in terms of plot, as it shows 4 different vignettes of everyday life, portraying the human struggle of living under harsh circumstances despite of the beautiful surroundings of Cuba. Its however, a technical, audiovisual marvel. Unsurprisingly, one of the most visually breathtaking films i've seen, some of these shots are just unbelievable. It has to be seen in order to be believed. Regardless of political standpoints, and as a filmlover, its pure joy watching these inventive and impressive shots unfold. The opening. The nightclub scenes. The scenes in the fields. The funeral scene. The ending. So much stuff to Wow at. Mikhail Kalatozov and Sergei Urusevsky must be one of the best duo's in the history of film. Beautiful, beautiful stuff, a new favorite.

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  Review by Stephen Gillespie ★★★★★ 15

  To love film is to love Soy Cuba. This Russian and Cuban collaboration captures the spirit of revolution and the soul of cinema. After having been lost for decades, and maligned as mere propaganda, this rediscovered masterpiece has earned its place as one of 20th century cinema’s real highlights.

  The most apparent genius of Soy Cuba is the filmmaking. The director’s other acclaimed feature, The Cranes are Flying, showed an incredibly grasp of visual storytelling as well as a virtuosity behind the camera. This is that times a thousand. There are shots in here that echo throughout cinema and that have never been equalled. It is most famous for its long takes, like one that Paul Thomas Anderson homages in…

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 8

  85

  Soy Cuba is the first film I've seen from director Mikhail Kalatozov, and it did not disappoint in the slightest. What a ravishing film, especially from the perspective of the camera. It is within the rousing emotion and energy of revolution that Mikhail Kalatozov offers a magical entry-point into this landscape. Long-takes that float through the air, observing the action, finding beauty in its top-down construction. Not to mention the intimacy of the camera in close-ups, a reminder that this is a personal story, no matter the success of its style. The innovative power of the images are properly conveying the importance of the subject. This is no mere exercise, but a historical snapshot, a cry for change, all…

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  Review by ComicTwerk4Sans ★★½ 41

  Yiff in hell Fidel

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★½ 15

  Revolutionary. Soy Cuba is cinema outside the rules. It is filled only with beautiful, ethereal shots. The camera floats around constantly, in a artful combination of tracking shots. A wide angle look is used, despite pressing close to its subjects. Soy Cuba observes and captures, nobody turns to the camera to talk to us. This is art with a message, but the message is spread across a large canvas of life rather than summarised in one short paragraph. Cuba is given a literal voice, a narrator that speaks between the four segments of this anthology. Soy Cuba is trying to represent a nation, though it does not capture then-contemporary Cuba, just the previous revolution and the injustice which started such…

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  Review by Jerry McGlothlin ★★★★½ 6

  “Why are you running away?
  You came here to have fun.
  Go ahead, have fun!
  Isn't this a happy picture!
  Don’t avert your eyes.
  Look!
  I am Cuba.
  For you, I am the casino, the bar, hotels and brothels.
  But the hands of these children and old people are also me"

  The beating heart of a nation in flames.

  Rulers all deceive but The People must believe, not in faux figureheads and spurious imposters, but in The People themselves. Revolution via an unyielding, impregnable humanism—the single answer—disemboweling the dictatorial body in front of you from within before its ever-rearing head has time to regenerate, because it always does; always with messages meant to appease, only to again oppress.

  A Revolution does not end with the overthrow, for it is only the beginning; the hardest part has yet to come.