guantanamera ( cuba , 1994 ) * * * 1/2 directed by tomas gutierrez alea and juan carlos tabio . written by eliseo alberto diego , alea and tabio . photography , hans burmann . art direction , onelia larralde . music , jose nieto . editing , carmen frias . cast : carlos cruz ( adolfo ) , mirtha ibarra ( georgina , aka gina ) , raul eguren ( candido ) , jorge perugorria ( mariano ) , pedro gernandez ( ramon ) , luis alberto garcia novoa ( tony ) , cochita brando ( aunt yoyita ) , suset perez malberti ( oku ) , et al . a cinepix release . subtitled . 104 minutes . not rated . road movie , farce , satire , picaresque picture , black comedy , bedroom farce . . . . take your pick as they all apply to " guantanamera , " the last film by the " maestro " of cuban cinema , tomas gutierrez alea ( 1928-1996 ) , called titon ( tee-ton ) by all his friends . he was already ill with lung cancer when he made it . as for his penultimate feature " strawberry and chocolate " ( 1993 ) he sought the collaboration of filmmaker juan carlos tabio , 15 years his junior , who also gets directorial credit in both features . " guantanamera " means the woman from guantanamo ( the town , not the u . s . base ) . it is probably the best-known cuban song . in cuba , various singers put their own lyrics on the melody . here it is heard several times , with different comments , descriptions or suggestions . the film's structure is that of the familiar road movie in which people try to get from point a to point b as events , happenings or adventures accumulate . in her teens , yoyita left guantanamo , became a famous singer , returned after 50 years to see her niece georgina ( aka gina ) , also met candido , the great love of her youth who had never stopped thinking of her . the charming senior citizens have a wonderfully romantic reunion . they reminiscences of the same event but with different images , are just like those of former lovers maurice chevalier and hermione gingold singing " i remember it well " in the musical " gigi . " then big-time artist yoyita dies suddenly in the arms of provincial brass-player candido . the main female role belongs to gina . she is played by the enchanting stage-and-screen actress mirtha ibarra , whose film debut was in " the last supper " by alea . mirtha and titon married ( he for the second time ) , had three daughters and were still together 22 years later , when titon died . gina , formerly an economics professor , is now married to adolfo , an official fallen from grace ( for undisclosed reasons ) . sidelined by the administration as the head of a minor committee on burials , he is now trying to regain recognition . adolfo conceives a pea-brained scheme for savin fuel in gasoline-strapped cuba : those who die far from their desired burial places will be transported by a system of relays between cemeteries . fate would have it that the first candidate for this long-distance experiment is auntie yoyita , who must be taken to havana , almost at the other end of the island . the trip , fraught with obstacles and coincidences , takes through the landscape and , more importantly , the humanscape . we see a cuba whose inhabitants do not lose their sense of humor but have to invent ways to survive financially . truck-driver mariano who has an engineering degree but must make a living , and his more mature buddy ramon , who though sensible still believes in witchcraft , take illegal passengers . sellers along the roads offer goods , mostly edibles , for dollars , not cuban money . adolfo has none , but his chauffeur , himself a black-marketeer ( or entrepreneur ) does , buys bananas and shares them with his boss . a sly reminder by a tour guide mentions that a certain town , over several centuries was the center of smuggling and had dealings with forbidden countries . it doesn't take a doctorate in history to see the reference to contemporary cuba . the paths of mariano's truck and adolfo's troublesome car ( no doubt soviet-built ) with adolfo , gina and candido as passengers , keep crossing . both background and foreground keep pointing to the shortages ( of everything ) in cuba , where one-table " secret " restaurants spring up ; where a fan-belt is a small treasure ; where coupons are needed for many things , even in a cemetery's cantina ; where the car's riders munch bananas from the subterranean economy as the radio spouts positive agricultural statistics among many disturbances , there's another romance brewing . i will not let the cat out of the bag except to say that mariano is at the love story's epicenter , and that he complicates things . mariano is a don juan with the equivalent of a girl in every port . here it's a lover in every town , gas-station , truck-stop or train-crossing . ( a sex-hungry young woman brings to mind the czech satire " closely watched trains . " ) the relationships are funny even when the premises are not . gags are brought in naturally . windshield wipers activate when the car is bumped ; a woman tells of man who died unexpectedly , then reveals that he was 107 years old . but " guantanamera " is not simply an entertainment . it is a movie about life , love and death during the hard times of an impoverished nation . alea , started his career as a dedicated celebrant of the cuban revolution . later , when he made the first big pictures that brought him international fame ( " death of a bureaucrat " 1966 ; " memories of underdevelopment " 1968 ) , many began to see him as a critic of the fidel castro regime , even though alea and castro had been schoolmates and were friends . but it was a misinterpretation of alea's complexity , and a matter of semantics . as alea repeatedely phrased it ( with varations ) , " to be critical is to make a militant film for the revolution " . or , " for the revolution to grow , for our country to develop positively , criticism is necessary . " " guantanamera " has no villains . it looks upon all its characters with sympathy , understanding or at a minimum , tolerance . the main butt of its criticism is adolfo , that misguided , counterproductive , symbolic , ambitious , egotistic and silly bureaucrat . in its own , rather kinky way , " guantanamera " is like part two of " death of a bureaucrat " of some thirty years earlier . like that film , like much of the rest of alea's output ( about a dozen out of a total of ca . 22 pictures ) , there's always a tricky patriotic balancing act of theory against practice , of marxist dialectics that uphold principles while they castigate misapplications . the process , neither obvious nor simple-minded , sometimes caused confusion in the public as well as the critics . it seems to me that alea is sending his viewers , especially the cubans , a message about the necessity to clean house . this is colorfully , deviously , subtly recounted as the legend of olofin , the god who created life but forgot to create death . there follow millenia of ever-aging populations which engulf the young -- until the other deity , iku , brings about rain and floods , so that all the aged drown and only physically fit younger people survive . thus did iku terminate progress-impeding immortality . all this is far more poetic than the american " time for a change , " or " we need new blood . " among the subtleties of this seemingly simple movie , is the fact that we see very few slogans : only one banner says " socialism or death . " and the fact that this seriocomic , appealing " realistic fantasy " neither mentions nor hints at the big bad wolf . one can almost hear alea saying : " yes , the yankees are partly to blame for our troubles , but we should not use this as an excuse or an alibi for our own shortcomings . " " guantanamera " was nominated for the golden lion at the 1996 venice film festival and honored at several others . 
