User Reviews

This is a moderately interesting German-made documentary about contemporary Cuba. The camera actually gets inside the homes of ordinary Cubans and interviews some of them at length. There are extensive clips from soap operas that many Cubans watch. And the dire situation in which most Cubans find themselves was made clear. However, the film is tantamount to a whitewash of the oppressiveness of the Castro regime. (Castro's name, by the way, is not mentioned once.) The omnipresence of the police in public places, the fact that thousands of Castro opponents have been put in jail or in psychiatric hospitals, the fact that thousands of young women are forced to resort to prostitution to make ends meet--all of these issues are skirted. This film is worth seeing, but for another view I recommend seeing "Azucar Amarga" ("Bitter Sugar") to get a balanced picture.

All those who couldn't identify the sense of "Buena Vista Social Club" as a prior promotional tool for a CD, and those who felt uncomfortable in its happy ending from the very first beginning should donate a second glance at this documentary. "Havanna mi amor" had been filmed by chance and the circumstances of its origin were adventurous. Everything had been filmed illegally and clandestinely and the film rolls had to been smuggled out of Cuba by aid of a medicine woman. Director Uli Gaulke and his partner (Why isn't she mentioned here?) planned to stay a few weeks in Havanna for curiosity's concerns - but then they decided to stay a whole year to make the final work of their film studies in Germany. Captured by the magic as well as miserable impressions of this capitol of zest for life, they build up friendship to a dozen of Havanneros of all ages and accompanied them some days, some nights, in private and in public. And you really can't avoid to fall in love with all these characters and to participate in the city's humorous flair and its habitants' dreams and sometimes crankiness. It's melancholic in a positive way. In front of all it goes deep into Havanna's ordinary people's reality telling little funny or sad slices of their every day life instead presenting privileged situations of extraordinary musicians (what the Buena Vistas definitely are). Strangely, all this plays a lot more melodies than Wim Wenders' famous film; "Havanna mi amor" is more charismatic and authentic than his (sometimes boring-to-death) 'making of' story. It's a precious portrait of something you would never have known. After watching it you will, in some weak moments, long for Havanna's simple but warm life style...