Virtual Nomads rejoice! Virtual Nomad took a long break to give some space for significant life events, and when we finally regroup for the next stop we are spoiled with a wonderful virtual destination that is Cuba. Ruled by Fidel Castro for 49 years, then succeeded by his brother until 2018, Cuba is a cradle of rich culture and incredible food, and an authoritarian system where civil liberties and freedom of speech are restricted and political opposition repressed. Cuba has the highest doctor-patent ratio in the world, and is home to the smallest known bird, the ‘bee hummingbird’ or ‘zunzuncito’. And one of the greatest gifts that Cuba has given to the world is its music. 

But first, as always, food

La Noche Cubana 

While there are several well-regarded Cuban restaurants in Sydney, this occasion (the relaunch of Virtual Nomad) called for a Cuban night in what we now call the Beach House.

On a lovely summer night, the Beach House welcomed 25 Virtual Nomads, which was a wonderful, chilled, warm and welcoming gathering. The food was amazing and while conversing and sipping alcoholic and non-alcoholic mojitos, we listened to Cuban music, from Buena Vista Social Club to the queen of salsa, Celia Cruz.  And as always, every household prepared one item from a shared menu.

Gathered around the table were my husband JK (introducing a new civil status for us both!), our children L (18), FK (16) and A (12), and several seasoned Virtual Nomads. There were also four newbies in the group, my human rights warrior friend LW brought her delightful and impossibly beautiful family, and my daughter L (18) invited her childhood friend GT.

While I cannot praise the atmosphere, food, music and company enough, this section is about food. All Virtual Nomads were asked to prepare and bring one dish from a traditional Cuban menu, and as always, the Virtual Nomads did deliver. Everyone is such an exceptionally good cook. We achieved the inclusion of most of the key features of the Cuban kitchen; Ropa Vieja, Lechón Asado, Moros y Cristianos, Cuban sandwiches, Pollo con Arroz, two Cuban salads, a wonderful dessert and of course Mojitos, the traditional Cuban cocktail. 

Ropa Vieja, or ‘old rags’, is the national dish of Cuba, and my hubby JK has the honour to prepare it. As a vegetarian, I observed the skillful preparation of a very meaty dish with much delight. Ropa Vieja takes some time to prepare, as a slow-cooked dish of shredded meat with capsicum, onions, tomato sauce and spices. The dish came to Cuba from medieval Spain through the Canary Islands. It is said that its roots are in the Sephardic Jew cuisine in which it was common to ‘repurpose’ leftover meat. There is a folklore tale that the name of the dish comes from a poor man who shredded his old clothes and cooked them in order to feed his family. He prayed for a miracle which then materialised and the old clothes turned into a delicious, filling stew. The tale is said to symbolise the Cuban spirit of resilience; making “something from nothing”. It is also said to be a dish that reflects adaptability and memory for the Cuban diaspora. JK does a stellar job in making sure that the tender meat is prepared in an olive oil-tomato-spices sauce, and then shredded (as in the photo) with two forks. The Virtual Nomads love this dish, and there are no leftovers after the Cuban Night. 

Wonderful friends and seasoned Nomads JJ, CL and EL brought an astonishing, highly elaborate Lechón Asado. In her youth, JJ worked a few years as a chef (and now works in a completely different field) and it shows. L’s childhood friend – in her first ever Virtual Nomad – said that whoever made this dish needs to be celebrated because it was extraordinary and outstanding. Lechón Asado is a dish that requires elaborated cooking skills as it is a slow-roasted dish (usually pork shoulder). It is a festive dish in Cuba, often part of the Christmas Eve or New Year’s dinner table, but also served in festive gatherings – a bit like ours. The secret of it is to slow-cook the meat into a tender succulent form with crispy skin (see in the photo) in a marinated sauce. It is an absolute hit among the Virtual Nomads. JJ says that as the recipe said that usually it is prepared with pork skin, then she decided to make it with pork skin. Lechón Asado is said to have originated from a 16th century African-influenced Spanish dish cochinillo, a dish of over-roasted suckling pig. It is often served with rice and beans, plantains and yuca (on the menu as well). 

Wonderful RA and AA (in their second Virtual Nomad stop after Sichuan hotpot (China), and our advisers for the Austrian night as they lived there several years) are in charge of a dubiously-called dish Moros y Cristianos, which literally means ‘Moors’ (the black beans) and ‘Christians’ (white rice). Beans and rice are cooked together with sofrito (onion, garlic and capsicum prepared together) with its roots in Spain. The dish symbolises the blending of Spanish and African cultures. The ‘moors’ (Arab Muslims)  governed a large part of Spain for eight hundred years and were expelled in what is called the Spanish Reconquista, but the African influence (of enslaved Africans) was to stay. In Cuba, it is a staple feature of Cuban cuisine and most usually a side dish for a more meaty plate. Different from rice and beans, a staple feature of Central American cuisine, in Moros and Cristianos rice and beans are cooked together. RA and AA bring a large quantity of the dish and many of our party members are able to take parts of this home. 

Seasoned Virtual Nomads, the beyond wonderful friends JD and KD bring a generous amount of Arroz con Pollo, rice with chicken, which I heard is fantastic. Arroz con pollo has been called a cornerstone of Cuban cuisine and is often mentioned as the one dish passed down by generations. It is a vibrant looking dish and very popular with the Virtual Nomads. JD is a great cook and he is particularly skilled with chicken curries, so an authentic Cuban arroz con pollo is only a step away from that and delivered perfectly. 

My human rights warrior friend LW and her delightful family bring both normal and gluten free Cuban sandwiches and they are delicious! The origin of the Cuban sandwich is said to derive from a Havana street food of the late 19th century called mixto – a sandwich with roasted pork and ham. Cuban cigar factory workers, especially in immigrant communities in Tampa and Key West, Florida, made variations to mixto, and it became a staple lunch food. Thousands of Cubans immigrated to Florida to work in these factories, and frequently travelled back to Cuba to visit family and brought with them Cuban bread with pork and ham. In Florida, it gathered other influences, including German and Italian. A Sicilian baker living in Cuba started to produce Cuban bread in Ybor City and the ‘Cuban sandwich’ started to evolve from there. Cuban sandwiches were especially popular in Tampa and Key West where the sandwich became ‘pressed and layered’. The Tampa sandwich was influenced by Italian immigrants with the inclusion of salami, cheese, pickles and mustard. The non-salami version became popular in Miami, especially after the revolution when there was a mass exodus of Cubans into Miami. It has remained a very popular dish in the Cuban diaspora and there are several regional variations. There is also a well documented, friendly Cuban sandwich rivalry between Tampa and Florida. Tampa hosts the International Cuban Sandwich Festival annually in March, which includes a “big smackdown competition to find the best Cuban sandwich.” It has also recorded the longest Cuban Sandwich in the world. 

The sandwiches that LW brings are crispy and compact with a perfect combination of melted cheese. They resulted very popular among the Virtual Nomads.

Picadillo is another pearl of Cuban cuisine. Swedish-born CÖ and her husband MJ bring vegetarian picadillo. Picadillo usually has ground beef, but this time we opted out. Picadillo is another dish originating in Spain and travelling to Cuba during the colonial times, and then going through a transformation in mixing with local flavors. The name derives from the Spanish word picar meaning to chop, mince, or bite. Legend has it that picadillo comes from Andalusia with strong influence from Arabic culinary traditions. Nitza Villapol (chef, teacher, cookbook writer, and television host in Cuba) made it famous in her 1954 cookbook Cocina Criolla. Picadillo is a tomato-based sweet and savoury blend of spices (coriander, cumin, oregano, capers, olives). In Cuba, picadillo is often served with rice or used in empanadas as the filling. Our delicious dish is a vegetarian version which serves as an absolutely wonderful addition to the heavier dishes. 

We also have boiled Yuca. There is a wonderful store in the funky and vibrant Sydney Inner West neighbourhood Newtown called Fiji Market. It is the favourite of Sydneysiders because you can get ingredients that otherwise would be difficult to find. Fiji Market sells frozen yuca, which is easy to boil and add to the dinner table. Yuca, also called cassava in different places, is more typical to Cuba than potatoes. In Cuba, yuca is often served with Mojo or picadillo. Yuca has been consumed in Cuba since the pre-Columbian times as it was already cultivated by the Taino people. Yuca does not have a very distinguished, strong taste but is a welcomed addition to the table – though most of it is left at the end as there are plenty of more tasteful dishes!

Our main dishes are accompanied by two Cuban salads. AK and her family (very seasoned Virtual Nomads) bring a Cuban crunch salad (the one on the left) and my wonderful US American friend SA brings Cuban salad with avocado. We also have a delicious dessert, Flan Cubano prepared by FK. 

Our main dishes are accompanied by two Cuban salads. AK and her family (very seasoned Virtual Nomads) bring a Cuban crunch salad (the one on the left) and my wonderful US American friend SA brings Cuban salad with avocado. We also have a delicious dessert, Flan Cubano prepared by FK. 

And a Cuban night would not be the same without Mojitos, the traditional Cuban cocktail made from white rum, lime juice, cane sugar, soda water and mint. The origin of mojito is in a 16th century Cuban drink called El Draque. Named after Sir Francis Drake, an English privateer, it was created around 1586 as a rustic mix of aguardiente, lime, mint and sugar and it was used mainly for medicinal purposes. It is said that lime in the drink helps relieve symptoms of scurvy, mint was a remedy for stomach aches, and the rum was for fever. It was first created – and legend says that at the request of Sir Drake – to treat his sailors. In the 1800s aguardiente was replaced by white rum, and the drink became fashionable in famous Cuban bars of the early 20th century (for example the legendary La Bodeguita del Medio). Mojito is very much associated with Cuba and has even been nicknamed “Cuba in a glass”. 

We have the opportunity to raise a glass to our beloved friend NH (who advised me about the Australia entry with his wonderful wife SAA, and is referred to in the Australia entry for this blog) who passed away in January after a short illness. NH was very dear to many people attending the Cuban night but especially to me and my children, and JJ (who prepared the famous Lechón Asado). We miss him so much. 

Tobacco, sugar cane and repression

The history of Cuba has always been a history of immigration, colonisation and upheaval – and repression of the less fortunate. Fertile and tropical, it is easy to understand why it is so attractive to so many nations. Cuba has been inhabited for thousands of years, including by Indigenous Guanahatabey, Taíno and Ciboney tribes. 

The Spanish and Cristobal Colón arrived in 1492 and made contact with local people, first seemingly amicably, and then with coloniser cruelty.  Cuba was colonised in 1511 by Spain and it remained under Spanish rule until 1898. The colonisers used native inhabitants as slaves and the population of the island diminished due to imported disease and unethical labour standards, leading to the loss of 90% of the Indigenous inhabitants. Cuba became the ‘headquarters’ of the Spanish colonisation in the Americas and a centre for the slavery and tobacco industries. Tobacco became the island’s main export for centuries. 

As the Spanish managed to kill most of their native slave workforce, they had to import slaves from somewhere else. More than 12.5 million Africans were brought to the “new world” as slaves. When Haitian sugar cane production collapsed, Cuba stepped in and became a major spot for the sugar industry in 1850-60, still depending heavily on slavery. It is estimated that 60% of the current Cuban population is descended from African slaves, heavily influencing Cuban culture and its music, art and celebrations. 

Slavery was finally abolished in 1886. Spain’s dominance of Cuba came to an end in 1898 following the independence war (1895-1898) and the U.S intervention. 200,000 to 300,000 people died. An important figure in the preparation for the independence war was Cuba’s national hero, poet José Martí, who died in the first battle against the Spanish. 

Cuba did not get the independence it dreamed of, but basically became a protectorate of the US which dominated the economy of Cuba and withheld the right to protect US interests, and establish an American base in Guantanamo (as stated in the Cuban Constitution, the Platt Amendment). The focus on monocrop agriculture attracted many migrants to the sugar care plantations, including from Spain (and one of them was a man called Ángel Castro). 

Political instability followed with puppet presidents and dictatorships, most notably the police state established by Fulgencio Batista. He was overthrown/asked to resign in 1959 when Fidel Castro’s rebel forces became successful with their revolution. The timeline and details of how everything happened is fascinating and much too complex to refer to here. 

From 1959 onwards until 2008, Cuba was under the watchful eye of Fidel Castro. There were several challenges on the way; the Cold War (the 1961 Bay of Pigs crises, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crises); the fall of the closest ally and financial supporter USSR in 1991; the economic crises of the 1990s; the exodus of people; the embargo by the US. The revolution did not bring the freedom the people dreamt of, particularly for the oppressed. Many social reforms benefitted many people (medical, education, literacy rates) but the repression of human rights and opposition, forced exiles, and incarceration of political opponents have left their mark in the beautiful but long-suffering island. Many left the island voluntarily or involuntarily, but while the diaspora / exile has been successful for some, it has not been for others. Many have stayed on the island and some believe in the lasting power of the revolution and the alternative it intended to offer, while others endure personal hardship and tragedies because of it. 
Fidel Castro transferred power to his brother Raúl in 2008 and passed away in 2016. Raúl approved some market-based reforms. Since 2019, the President of Cuba is Miguel Díaz-Canel who is also the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba. The Communist Party is still the only legally allowed political party in Cuba.

Five books from Cuba 

Again, I turn to friends to define the essential Cuban books that I need to read. This time the reference group is quite large (and everyone has their own taste) and it is hard to pick from a long list of favourite authors and books. My Cuban friends and ‘local people’ of Cuban origin recommend very different books, or books from the same author. Therefore I decide to first choose those books that have multiple mentions, and then arbitrarily add two others that someone I know absolutely loves. In the end it is an interesting selection of books from such different authors as Reinaldo Arenas, Zoé Valdés, Carlos Manuel Ǻlvarez,  Leonardo Padura and Alejo Carpentier. I also considered reading José Lezama Lima which I might do in the future. Two of these authors in their personal life had completely opposing, but yet so similar, political views. Alejo Carpertier was a pro-Castro, pro-revolution communist with close ties to the Castro regime while Zoé Valdés is a far-right anti-immigration pro-Trump conservative living in exile. Both filled with hatred for others. I did not know these details before reading their books but interestingly their books were the ones I liked least, together with the sub-par crime noir book of Leonardo Padura, one of the worst books I have read on the Virtual Nomad journey. Fortunately Reinaldo Arenas made it up for the rest.

My first book for this stop comes from Alejo Carpentier, said to be the founding father of Magical Realism and titan of Latin American (and world) literature. Alejo was not only an author, he was also a musicologist, an important figure in the shaping of Afro-Caribbean identity from a post-colonialist point of view, and a personal friend of Fidel Castro and fierce defender of his regime. He is also said to be the one of the innovators of literature in Latin America, the “new novel” that follows a less structured narrative structure.  

El Reino de Este Mundo (The Kingdom of This World) was first published in 1949 (in English in 1957) and is considered as Alejo’s major work. The story is built around a young slave, TiNoel, in the midst of the Haitian revolution. Fiction blends in with historical facts and reimagines the past with magical realism elements. (Interestingly, in the following book that I read for this stop, the autobiography from Reinaldo Arenas, Alejo is not described in favourable terms.)

But what about the book itself? The language is dense and rich to the point that it is confusing, and tiring at times. While 100 years of solitude is extraordinarily skillful in its magical-realist storytelling, for me this one does not achieve the same. The language is heavy with words matched with an unexciting plot, this book just does not do it for me. I find it quite archaic and weighty. 

My next book is the English translation of the autobiography of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas (original title Antes que anochezca, 1992), Before Night Falls. I really wanted to read this book in its original language, but all I could find was the translation which was of course a huge disappointment as Reinaldo was a master of words. The translation was actually very good and transported the original thoughts and ideas well. It is a book that I have wanted to read for a long time, for a silly simple reason, which is Javier Bardem’s outstanding portrait of Reinaldo Arenas in a movie made based on this book. I returned to watch the movie for this stop but as so many times, real life is more harrowing that a movie can ever depict. This book is a devastating tale of repression, persecution, state terror, authoritarian regimes and people struggling under extreme pressure. At the same time, it is a love letter to three pillars in Reinaldo’s life: writing, sex and the sea. 

Reinaldo was an openly gay Cuban dissident poet who died by suicide in New York in 1990, bedridden and weakened by AIDS. His story is a story of poverty and stolen youth in post-revolution Cuba. He openly opposed the regime of Fidel Castro (who is depicted in that egomaniac glory that authoritarian leaders everywhere possess and then go after their critics) and faced censorship, imprisonment, ostracisation and finally forced exile. The struggle is constant, be that childhood poverty, repression given by authoritarian regimes (under right wing Batista and communist Castro), persecution for his homosexuality and political criticism, infernal incarceration, betrayal of friends and family and exile in a soulless, capitalist US. There are moments of light and Reinaldo is almost until the very end protected by a mysterious fate of surviving dangerous and harrowing situations.

Even translated, Reinaldo is a masterful writer. It is a harrowing, powerful tale that is crystal sharp in its best moments. If I was to rate it, I would give 4.5 out of 5 because while as a social and political commentator Reinaldo is excellent, and his descriptions of life in Cuba (and post) and people around him are astute and brilliant, I am bothered about his views about sex. I am not bothered about the amount of sex in the book, and there is a lot (and I mean A LOT)  – everyone seems to want to have sex everywhere all the time and with everyone – but it is his affirmation that sex between two men is satisfactory only when one of them is heterosexual and dominates the submissive homesexual – which would probably bother those gay men that I know. Even after more than 5000+ sex partners, he never sees sex as an action between equals but as a space of dominance/submission; and for him love is something separate from sex. But these are his views and do not take away the value of this powerful, shattering testimony of a caged individual and society, and the atrocities that humans easily slip into when inebriated with absolute power and restriction of personal freedoms.  

I would not go as far as describing The Fallen by Carlos Manuel Álvarez (2018) as ambigious or utterly uneventful, but it is not very memorable and somewhat lifeless. It is described to be a meticulous and “unsettling, powerful portrait” of a disintegration of a family in a society that is breaking apart, in a crossroads between idealism of the past and aspirations of younger generations. It reads a bit like a reality show, everything is described in painstaking detail. The writing is without doubt very good, and there are interesting, even stellar, moments– plus, it gets better towards the end of the book. The way the breakdown of a friendship is described between two characters, like a car that continues to coast after the engine is turned off, is very effective. 

The story is told from the point of view of four family members, a very interesting starting point as they reveal the subjectivity of what is true. Sometimes, the parts contradict each other, depending who is talking. That is quite interesting and there are a few intriguing plot spots, but overall after the book I did not really remember in great detail what happened or what it was about. A bit like a disappearing text message. 

Carlos is a journalist and an author and this is his debut book so he is definitely someone with promise. In 2016, he co-founded El esturnudo (aivastus), an online Cuban magazine. He has featured in several ‘best of lists’ such as the 2016 Guadalajara Book Fair list of twenty best Latin American writers born in the 1980s and the 2017 Bogota39 list of best Latin American writers under 40. 

I found La Nada Cotidiana by Zoé Valdés (1995) at the local library, and in the original language. This is a book that many of the Cuban friends or people of Cuban origin, consulted for this stop, recommended. It is the most famous book of Zoé, a vocal critic of the Cuban regime who lives in exile in Paris. I also learned that unfortunately Zoe is also a member of Vox, a repugnant anti-immigrant far-right party in Spain (when, in fact, she herself is an immigrant) as well as a supporter of president Donald Trump of USA – all of which is a surprise to the Cuban friends when I tell them.

The book itself is not what I expected. It is seemingly a semi-autobiographical tale of a woman who feels nothing and everything at the same time. Intended to be sarcastic, dry and nihilistic; that is, supposed to have an intellectual aura – the book comes through as a bland, dull, colourless symphony of complaining.  I read a hilarious review of this book that was one line: “A Cuban woman who likes sex whining about her life.” The social commentary in the end lacks intensity and Zoe writes more passionately about detailed sex sessions with her lover (which probably is based on Zoe’s third husband and she wants the world to know how lucky she is due to the exceptional size of her lover’s penis) than the social reality surrounding the first generation born into the post-revolution Cuba. 

My last book for this stop comes from the most famous contemporary Cuban author, Leonardo Padura. First I start with El hombre que amaba a los perros (The Man Who Loved Dogs, 2009) which is a 700+ page book about the exile and murder of Leon Trotsky. It has universally raved reviews, and 4.7 stars on Good Reads. It has been hailed as a masterpiece and I do believe that it is a great book. I just could not proceed for more than 100 pages because I was not interested enough in the subject matter. Therefore I leave no rating and rest in the belief that it is a great book, just not for me. I decide to read his shorter Havana Blue (1991), the first of the black noir detective series about Police Lieutenant Mario Conde. He is a chain-smoking boozing alcoholic loser who lusts after a childhood crush (with a paperthin personality but whose bum looks so good under her expensive gowns). 

I am quite surprised about how bad this book actually is, especially when it comes from a celebrated author like Leonardo Padura. The intent is to write a ‘Cuban noir’ police novel of the fast and the furious; high level corruption, shady deals, criminal businessmen and beautiful women with tiny waists and big breasts. Filled with sentences such as (my own translation): “He nodded and wanted to smoke. Death always brought on a desire to smoke.” in the same paragraph that Mario Conde has an erection interviewing a woman whose husband has disappeared and later has sex with her (while investigating the disappearance of her husband). Ugh. Nothing happens, the plot is silly and overall the misogyny is so deep that it is infuriating and deeply disappointing. I finished the book because I felt I had to but that was 224 pages too many. 

The Cuban Movie Festival

Cuba has an active movie industry which is mostly overseen by the state-run Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC, Cuban Institute of the Arts and Cinematographic Industries). Cuba has hosted the Havana Film Festival annually since 1979. The industry faces economic challenges, but there is a growing generation of independent filmmakers. I again turned to friends to ask what I should see, and based on their recommendations, I again have been able to identify ten movies and documentaries, not all of them by Cuban filmmakers but all of them about Cuba. 

My favourite Cuban movie of all time is Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate, 1993) by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío that I rewatched for this entry. It has been many years since I have seen it and it is not easy to find, but in the end I do. In the 1990s it won several awards and was the first and only Cuban movie to be nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film. (It lost to a Russian movie Burnt by the Sun). It is a movie about a friendship between a communist militant student David and an artistic gay man Diego who both profoundly love their city and the country but in different ways. David’s Cuba is welcoming to him as part of the system and Diego’s Cuba is unwelcoming to him as a gay man living under constant vigilance and threat. The political content is not overshadowing, but still everpresent. It also pays homage to Havana and its beauty despite decay. Not much happens in the movie and it is more conversational than plot-thick. It is a beautiful testimony to overcoming differences.

It is not the first Latin American film with LGBTQ themes, but still an important landmark as not only the first Cuban film with a gay character, but for its representation of Diego as an intelligent, sympathetic and warm character with human longing in unrequired love. Interestingly, the US version of the movie had six minutes cut from the movie and those six minutes included a conversation about racism, and David and Diego meeting by accident in a book store and being forced to pretend they do not know each other. At the time, it was explained that cutting those six minutes made the movie more compact for North American audiences. 

Various sources and some friends claim that Memorias del Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment, 1968) is the best Cuban film of all time. It is indeed included on several ‘best of’ lists (144th according to Sight and Sound in 2012). Also directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (like Strawberry and Chocolate), it is a black and white movie about a bourgeois man called Sergio who decides to stay in post-revolution Cuba while his wife and friends leave the country. It has a fragmented timeline which is said to reflect the way memories work. The memories and reflection swing between crude documentary footage of violence and torture (civil wars in both Cuba and Spain), Sergio’s inner monologue on Cuba, life and human nature, and his lusting after women. Sergio spends his days walking around Havana accompanied by nihilistic thoughts about the decay of Cuba and Latin America, and about women and their bodies. “There is a point between 30 and 35 that Cuban women become decomposing fruit” he says at one point before basically stalking a teenager (basically a child) who he coerces into sex and then ghosts. He says of his teenage ‘girlfriend’ that she is incapable of relating to things, which is a sign of underdevelopment. Sergio wants to live like an intellectual European, but Elena, the teenage girl, symbolises the decadent, superficial Cuba that stays underdeveloped. It is an interesting movie, maybe not enjoyable but interesting; a nihilistic reflection on alienation, indifference, deception and a state in which nothing has a meaning. Sergio has no direction or goal in life, except for sex. Sergio’s trial for rape of his 16-year old girlfriend (he is 38) looks very different in 2026 than it would in the 1960s – he does not show any remorse for bedding a teenager based on his understanding that “she wanted it” (and I am not quite sure if she did). Women have no real role here, either, they are objectified as creatures with breasts, irrational, inconsistent and child-like– the deep thoughts and any intellect belong to men in this movie. 

After I read Reinaldo Arenas’ autobiography, I rewatched the movie based on it. This movie belongs to mesmerising and beyond brilliant Javier Bardem, who captures a performance of a lifetime. Directed by Julian Schnabel in 2000, Before Night Falls is not a perfect movie. It is weird that it is filmed in broken English when many of the actors are Spanish speakers and once you read the book, you understand that it is much more light than the reality. It has been explained that it is filmed in English so that it can reach a wider audience, but it does affect its authenticity and alienates it from the impact of Reinaldo’s story. There is a cameo of Johnny Depp in a double role – but he is not very good in either role, and his overacting makes it seem like a joke. The movie is more or less faithful to the book, but takes some liberties and for all that Reinaldo endured in life, it feels a bit of a light take on it. It is an ‘art-house’ movie more than a realistic depiction of the traumas he went through. This is especially clear in the parts involving his incarceration. While Javier is amazing in the role, the movie does not give much emphasis on Reinaldo’s writing, and more to his life as a queer man and his search for pleasure. Even if I enjoyed it, I did find it hollow and shallow compared to the source material, but Javier’s performance is still outstanding. 

It is all about music in Wim Wenders’ documentary Buena Vista Social Club (1999) that celebrates Cuban Music and one of its global stars, the musicians that recorded the now famous album. The documentary shows the musicians coming together and playing some great music. There are several interviews, most of them about Ry Cooder. The interviews are somewhat interesting, but it is the music that makes the documentary worthwhile, the celebration of these master musicians and the magic that they create together. 

There are approximately 145 kilometers between Cuba and Key West in Florida; and for decades that distance has been significant for many Cubans, for many reasons. Balseros is an award winning 2002 documentary by Catalan directors Carles Bosch and Josep Mª Domènech about the time when more than 35,000 people left Cuba on precarious makeshift boats towards Florida, as the result of the economic crisis of 1994. The document follows seven families over seven years, both in Cuba and in the US. The first hour of the documentary happens in Cuba and follows the construction of the rafts and people who dream to leave and how much they are willing to sacrifice. One man tells how they had to destroy his cousin’s house to build a raft and a few women tell how they need to sell their bodies to tourists they do not like to make enough money for building materials or hiring a truck to move their raft to the shore. In the documentary someone says: “No one knows how many people left Cuba; how many succeeded and how many failed.” Many, many did not make it anywhere, and due to the Clinton administration policy of ceasing the automatic asylum, many were captured by the US Coast Guard and detained in Guantanamo, the US naval base in Cuba. The second half is about those that made it in Florida and what became of their life. Life in the US is harder than expected and some have success, others don’t. There are people left behind in Cuba with uncertain futures, economic and cultural struggles and different paths. It is a captivating documentary of the chase of personal freedom that easily converts into a deep deception, even tragedy. 

Habana Blues (2005) by Benito Zambrano is a movie about Cuban music with a bit of a cliched plot. It is basically a story of two musician friends dreaming to make it big and leave Cuba for a better life. One has a more moral bone and lives with his grandmother, while the other is a womanizer with a neglected wife and children. A Spanish music producer offers them a contract and then both are faced with decisions about life. It is very cliche with some character arcs and uneven acting but the music is fantastic – and there is a lot of it. That is when the movie lights up, together with the performance of Yailene Sierra who plays the neglected wife coming to terms with her own future. Benito, the director, is a Spaniard who studied film in Cuba. The soundtrack of the movie is credited to Habana Blue Band. but it is a fictional band and the music was produced for the movie, blending traditional Cuban sounds with pop and rock. 

Another ‘best of’ Cuban movie is a 2003 documentary Suite Habana by Fernando Pérez that won several domestic and international awards. It has no dialogue and only a few spoken words here and there. Filmed like a movie, it is a lyrical and melancholic testimony of a day in Havana from morning until night, and more specifically offering glimpses into the life of 12 different people, marked by prolonged economic crises. It is about these people and their lives in decaying apartments and flooded ground floors, hard work and long hours but above all it is about la Habana/Havana and its energy and rhythm. Havana is distinguishingly herself and the filmography gives justice to her decaying beauty. The people in the movie are very normal, everyday people; a 40-year old railroad worker, a 79-year old grandmother who sells peanuts on the street for a living; a 30-year old living with his mother in a flat that gets flooded when it rains, a 10-year old boy with a down syndrome learning numbers and how to ride a bike. It is a privileged window into these people’s lives and their Havana. That life is after all the same everywhere; people wake up in the morning and have their showers / baths / breakfasts and go to work / school. It is everyday life, a reality documentary of people just living– sometimes their paths crossing and sometimes not. It is still and calm, and poetic and even if it is filmed in Havana it does not sensationalise with the clearly apparent shortages of electricity and some other commodities. It is an urban poem portrait of la Habana with all its glory and downfalls. 

Conducta (Behaviour, 2014) by Ernesto Daranas is another movie that tops critic lists and has been said to have ‘marked a whole generation’ in Cuba. It became a huge critical and commercial success in Cuba. The set-up is not very different from a lot of other movies; a good and caring teacher takes interest in children living in challenging home environments, makes a difference but faces unforgiving institutional response. In this movie it is a troubled adolescent Chala who lives with his alcoholic mother and trains fight dogs for a living. It is not very different from other movies in this genre, such as the extraordinary Radical (2023) from Mexico. What is different in this movie of course is that it is filmed in Havana and can be seen as a critical view of Cuban society at the time, and the rigid educational systems. There are first loves, rivalry between boys, a bit of violence and poverty, coming of age. But a teacher that cares; a story then feels familiar and not surprising. The locations are beautifully filmed and there are many aerial shots. Acting is quite solid overall- like in many of these movies the child actors are amateurs and in their first film roles. The main actor Armando Valdés Freire was selected among over 7000 candidates for the role. Interestingly, most of the actors of the movie later emigrated to the United States, or Spain, and only a few stayed in Cuba. 

Another movie from Fernando Pérez (Suite Habana) is Madagascar (1994/1995) that depicts the psychological impact of the economic crises of the 1990s in Cuba (again, in Havana). Focusing on a difficult relationship between a mother and her daughter, it shows a university professor living a very uneventful life with her elderly mother and her apathetic daughter obsessed with leaving Cuba and going to Madagascar. It is said to be an introspective and symbolic movie about the social change in Cuba, but I see it as a mother witnessing the mental breakdown of her child, and herself. It is more a portrait of depression and mental illness and a mundane life without any real meaning or purpose. Some parts of the story are dreamworld and some are reality, and it is not always clear which is which. It is a beautifully filmed and quite a short movie that I cannot fully connect with it. 

Cuba and the Cameraman is a Netflix documentary from 2017 that covers nearly five decades of visiting and filming in Cuba of North American journalist Jon Alpert. Not only has he been visiting and interviewing three different Cuban families, but he also had almost unprecedented access to Fidel Castro whom he followed on Castro’s first US visit. It is quite an astonishing achievement, 45 years of filming people, forging relationships that remain strong throughout the years. It makes the documentary very human. Jon connects with all these people and through them demonstrates the life of ordinary Cubans and the struggles they have in their daily life. The shortages of everything from food to medicine, and the different life stories of all the people that he keeps on visiting. It is very personal and deeply human, and also an outstanding testimony of the changes in Cuba during the five decades, from the 1970s to the death of Fidel Castro in 2016. 

Once I have finished the ten movies and documentaries for this stop, I hear that the Netflix The Cuba Libre Story documentary series is a very comprehensive take on recent Cuban history – or not that recent; the last 500 years of Cuban history. The eight episodes cover everything from pre-Columbian times (briefly) to Spanish colonisation, massacre of Indigenous inhabitants, slavery, the monoculture, US dominance, the revolution, Fidel Castro and his people, and recent history. The series contains interviews with more than 50 people from Fidel Castro’s inner circle to historians, politicians, pro- and anti-revolutionists, etc. It is interesting and I find the early episodes especially compelling. What bothers me about the series is the lack of Latin American voices. There are quite a few Cubans who were interviewed; especially those with personal experience, but a big portion of Cuban history is told through German, Spanish, Catalan, French, Russian and US historians, expats and others that have been considered experts. Nothing wrong with the diversity of voices, but there is a lack of Latin American scholars. There are prominent Latin American and Caribbean historians, political scientists, economists, urbanists etc. that could have been interviewed for this. 

Music

One could talk hours about the music from Cuba and still not give it justice. Cuban music is a blend of different influences; West African (especially Kongo and Yoruba cultures) and European (mainly Spanish). To simplify, it could be said that African slaves brought the rhythm (percussion) and the Spanish brought the melody (guitar). But nothing is straightforward in music as in culture, and music evolves through time and space. Cuban music has also been influenced by other musical forms including jazz and the French-influenced music from Haiti. There is so much to say about Cuban music, but Buena Vista Social Club is a good place to start. 

(Thank you to L for proofreading!)

Next stop: Cyprus