Popular reviews

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  Review by brotherdeacon ★★★★

  A fascinating historical document bonded aesthetically by Chris Marker's eye for the dramatic and humanist-poetic image inside the everyday actions of early revolutionary Cuba; It was shot hurriedly in 1960-61, the year of the covert Bay of Pigs invasion from the U.S.-- Cuba Si was banned in France (for 15 years) as propaganda for Fidel Castro's Marxist government by the French Foreign Ministry, though Marker held screenings with illegal prints for journalists and film reviewers from other European nations. Derek Malcolm in the Guardian labelled it a classic "because its importance at the time was so obvious, and it remains the best and most intimate film on the making of a revolution."

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  Review by máte vargas 🇵🇸

  ¡Abajo con el bloqueo genocida contra Cuba de los Estados Unidos! 

  Ya van 60 años del embargo ilegal del gobierno estadounidense contra la isla después de la revolución que se ve en este documental.

  Cuando yo estaba en Cuba hace unos años, vi como la revolución ha garantizado que todxs tienen vivienda, educación y tratamiento médico, pero también vi lo tanto que el bloqueo lxs niega.

  Las restricciones impuestas por el gobierno norteamericano sobre el acceso a alimentos, materiales, medicinas, etc. La gente en Cuba merece vivir en paz y sin sufrir por la cruel intervención de Washington. Por ganar su independencia del imperio capitalista han sido castigados, como Haití, y han pagado muchísimo.

  Viendo el triunfo del Pacto Histórico hoy en Colombia, se siente un poco de esperanza que la lucha sigue en América Latina contra la opresión de EEUU y que va formando más unidad contra las fuerzas derechistas y anti-progresivas en la región.

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  Review by SantanaYork ★★★½

  Marker venía de ser censurado tras condenar al colonialismo francés en Les statues meurent aussi, y vuelve a ser censurado tras su apoyo a la revolución cubana en este peculiar mediometraje.

  Poquísimo antes de llevar a cabo La Jetée, Marker se adentra en los rincones de un país que se encuentra inestable ante el mundo, está cambiando. Una Cuba caótica y alegre a la vez es lo que Marker presencia, las imágenes del director francés cargan en su subtexto una incertidumbre que se pasea por debajo de la sociedad cubana, un algo que está ahí, pero que no puedo explicar con exactitud, solo sé que sé algo con tan solo ver las caras de las personas. Una mirada radiante o…

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  Review by whale fan ★★★½

  Wish this were in better shape, there are some fantastic images and sequences but they’re all degraded/compressed to shit. Its closest analogue in Marker’s filmography is Letter From Siberia, similar formally and also in terms of it disguising political commentary as objective reporting/documentation.

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  Review by iomarcela

  Patria o muerte

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  Review by Marcissus ★★★ 1

  Slow dance in military formation to the rhythm of distortion and drums, machine guns overlook the conga lines, searching for those with bad timing, now cha cha real smooth, the defections from ideals are led by cheerleaders with wide smiles, celebrating the days, in order, for all is well on this day, the puppies and the rabbits and the parakeets and the machine guns will all grow to be big and strong and loud and domesticated, the crowds assemble around the suicide jumpers who land prettily, slaughter the witnesses and build new worlds on the fields of your leaders dreams, there are no half-measures, revolve around revolutions as dictators with bloodsoaked green fatherly sweaters swear fealty to your feelings, everything is possible in cuba, si. oh si si si.

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  Review by pariscommune ★★★★★

  An astounding, in-depth look at the Cuban Revolution in its genesis -- it had only been 1 1/2, maybe 2 years? since the Revolution when this film was made. It is raw, Guerilla-style filming that shows the Cuban Revolution in its birth.

  I loved the two interviews with Fidel Castro -- this is perhaps one of the earliest interviews with him -- definitely perhaps one of the earliest post-Revolution; to think he was just 35 years old here! He is, of course, meticulous, thorough, and detailed in his answers.

  I absolutely loved the break in filming that is just a conga band playing in the streets with Cubans, Afro-Cubans, and other multinational people, dancing and celebrating despite the incoming Bay of Pigs, and they KNEW it was happening. They still celebrated, and mobilized, and defeated the imperialist u.s. invasion.

  I've been looking for this everywhere -- I'm glad someone uploaded english subtitles onto it on youtube. It's a must watch.

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  Review by fede

  Y el pueblo después de un año repite: ¡Gracias Fidel!

  Que belleza la voz (y la cabeza) de Fidel. Daba (y seguro había material) para quedarselo escuchando largo y tendido. Un Marker condensado y un poco distante, abrumado, tal vez, por la cuba vencedora, que todo lo pudo y todo lo puede, hasta la victoria siempre.

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  Review by Gustavo Menezes ★★★★★

  Deveria ser exibido todo ano em cada escola latino-americana.

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  Review by Not Derek Malcolm

  Documentarists tend to be an eccentric breed. They need to be, since none of the main film festivals allow their films into competition (an incomprehensible decision), and to get a documentary into a cinema these days is a fraught process. But there is no more highly personal yet elusive film-maker than Chris Marker. His importance lies not in how many audiences have been affected by his films, but in how many of his fellow film-makers regard him as something of a genius.

  It would be possible to choose half a dozen of his films as classics. I only select the 1961 Cuba Si! because its importance at the time was so obvious, and it remains the best and most intimate…

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  Review by Dlefín le Bowlier ★★★★

  virgin batista: noooooo! the peasantry are taking land they never paid for or invested in and ruining our classicoomer gardens. the urban poor are rejecting mafia-laced american gambling infrastructurinos. you're not cincinnatus or robin hood but robespierre, trying to retain power and rejecting hecking bourgeois elections! plebs aren't supposed read, that's cringe!

  chad fidel: ¡cuba sí!

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  Review by Carlos Cruz ★★★★

  «Trabajo para todos; la tierra para el que la labra; casas para los que viven en ellas; viviendas para los que no tienen una. ¿Existe algo más evidente que esto? La Revolución solamente hizo de las cosas obvias una realidad».