The Lost City

There are usually two kinds of movies about revolutions in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America during the 50s and 60s. One tends to romanticize the revolutionaries and the other takes the ordinary people’s points of view. Andy Garcia’s directorial debut, The Lost City, is clearly the latter.

Garcia came to America with his Cuban parents at age of five and has only returned once, to the US naval base on the island to do a concert for Cuban refugees. It took Garcia more than 15 years to complete this film and anyone who watches it can see this is a labor of love and nostalgia. The story revolves around three brothers from a wealthy family in the late 50s’ Havana. With Castro’s revolution in the air, the three siblings have chosen three different paths: The oldest one Fico (played by Garcia), a club owner, chooses to stay neutral; the middle one Luis becomes a martyr for the cause; the youngest one Ricardo opts for joining Che Guevara’s guerrilla force.

The movie is an ode to Havana of the past, Paris of Latin America. Garcia recreated Havana in the Dominican Republic with lush color, exuberant spirit and above all, Cuban music and dance. Legendary Cuban exile, novelist Gabriel Cabrera Infante cleverly wrote Fico as a nightclub owner so that Garcia could have an ample opportunity to showcase all those marvelous music and dance numbers. The music and dance alone are worth the price of this movie. For people living outside Miami, we don’t hear enough Cuban jazz and watch enough Cuban dances, a special kind of strong, sexy and passionate movement. The movie runs almost two and half hours. I don’t think Garcia has a heart to cut many sequences in the editing room. In order to make the movie pace faster, Garcia frequently has two scenes go on almost simultaneously. For example, when Fico is asked by the secret police chief about some Castro supporter, we see Fico’s flashback mingled with Fico’s response. In this way, we see both what Fico really knows and what he says to the chief. In another case, Fico comes to his family’s Sunday dinner later and while his father talks to him, we see back and forth why he is late and what happens at another dinner earlier. What has transpired in the other dinner reflects well his father’s advice.

If The Motorcycle Diaries portrayed Che Guevara as a hero, The Lost City has shown the other side of this revolutionary. When Che guns down an already injured enemy, he is no different from Batista’s head of secret police who coldheartedly kills wounded freedom fighter at the step of Batista’s palace.

The movie stars a large Hispanic cast and Garcia does a competent job here. The most beautiful Spanish face in the fashion industry, Ines Sastre, plays Garcia’s love interest Aurora and a symbol for Cuba and Havana. As Fico says in the movie - “Beauty is [her] nature” – Sastre shines on the screen. In her first major English language role, Garcia understands Sastre’s limitations and utilizes her beauty well. Many shots of Fico and Aurora’s courtship look just like Sastre’s ad spreads on many magazines, which is the image that Garcia wants to convey about Havana – a romantic paradise with metropolitan polish. However, because Garcia obviously uses Sastre as a surrogate for his beloved country and city, Aurora’s character is thin and erratic at times. It is very hard to fathom how she suddenly transforms from a merely beautiful face to some idealistic young woman ultra loyal to Castro’s cause. She apparently represents beautiful Cuba trapped in a dictator’s ideology, but the connection completely throws her character development off course. Also, though Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray are two brilliant actors, I don’t really know the purposes of their roles. They don’t add much to the story and can be easily cut to save some screen time for more dance and music.

The ending of the movie may seem too political and preachy to many people, but I find the poem and song both lyrical and moving. It simply shows how strongly Garcia feels about his motherland.

As it is often the case in revolutions, we simply get one tyrant replace another and endure new if not more suffering as a result. In the movie, there are constant conflicts and choices between one’s family and one’s country. Which is above which, or can we really separate the two? It is heartbreaking to see a country ruined, a city lost, a culture oppressed, a life style pass us by before we are ready to let it go, and especially a family destroyed and torn apart.