5 - Memorias Del Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment, 1968), Directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Summary

Cast

Sergio, played by Sergio Corrieri

Elena, played by Daisy Granados

Pablo, played by Omar Valdés

Noemí, played by Eslinda Núñez

Laura, played by Beatriz Ponchera

Elena’s brother, played by René de la Cruz

With

Yolanda Far

Ofelia González

José Gil Abada

Daniel Jordán

Luis López

Rafael Sosa

Crew

Screenplay: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, based on novel Inconsolable Memories by Edmundo Desnoes

Photography: Ramón F. Suárez

Editor: Nelson Rodríguez

Music: Leo Brouwer

Conductor: Manuel Duchesne Cuzán

Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Produced by: the Cuban Film Institute

Awards

Winner, Best Foreign Language Film, XVI International Film Festival, Karlovy

Vary, Czechoslovakia, 1968

Winner, Sirena Prize, Critics’ Club, Varsovia, Poland, 1970

Jury Selection, London Film Festival, 1971

Nominee, Rosenthal Prize, U.S. National Society of Film Critics (Alea was refused a visa by U.S. State Department to attend the award ceremony)

Selected by the New York Times as one of the best ten films of 1973 (the year in which it opened commercially in New York)

Plot

Film opens with a street scene in which someone is shot and then led off – a scene which reappears later on in the consciousness of the main character and narrator, Sergio Camona. Set in Havana in 1961, we see footage of people leaving Havana for Miami at passport control. Sergio says good-bye to his wife, Laura, and his parents who are leaving for the United States. Throughout the film we hear his thoughts in voice-over. We follow Sergio as he returns to his luxurious apartment. We see him surveying the city through his telescope, trying to work out if it has changed or not as a result of the Revolution. He is writing a diary, and spends his time listening to a recorded conversation he had with his wife shortly before she left. He goes to a book shop and muses that Havana, once considered the Paris of the Caribbean, is now no better than Guatemala. He meets his well-to-do friend, Pablo, and they exchange notes on how everything has gone downhill since the Revolution. Sergio meets a pretty young girl called Elena, whom he introduces to one of his contacts in the Film Institute, since she says she wants to be an actress. He takes her to his apartment and they make love.