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T O P I C R E V I E W
BaftaBaby
Posted - 12/25/2010 : 21:29:19 If you're a fan of the kind of jazz overflowing from American and European jazz clubs in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, and you celebrate the adult animation of films like Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis, you'll find lots to love in this decades-long love story between fabulous jazz singer Rita and Chico, the equally talented piano player she meets in the Havana hood.
Experienced director Fernando Trueba and his less confident co-helmer Javier Mariscal really elevate their material both visually (with no-holds barred sex scenes), and with a truly infectious soundtrack.
Yes, the story is poignant in theory, but it's never really clear why the love story takes the twists and turns it does. A more socially aware script would have used the vagaries of the relationship as an organic outgrowth of the complex political situation instead of using it primarily as a backdrop. There are some points made about American racial hypocrisy and Cuban cultural anti-imperialism. But they're isolated points with no demonstrable bearing on the focal romance.
Instead, that story is full of cliches of cheating lovers, false expectations, the inability to communicate and missed opportunities.
The ending should be as resolute and emotionally satisfying as a Duke Ellington suite, but unless you're easily manipulated, it's just not.
The filmmakers have just taken on too much to present a story as lean and spare as the music. It's as true for movies as for music - less is more.
