Memories of Underdevelopment [1968]

 Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s masterpiece of Cuban cinema and a sensational example of the ‘Imperfect Cinema’ manifesto, Memories of Underdevelopment portrayed a pivotal period in the island-nation’s post-revolution history – the months between the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis – through an elastic form allowing interpretations shaped by the viewers’ political positions. Alea – a left-wing intellectual who admired Fidel Castro, co-founded the prestigious Cuban film body ICAIC, and fresh from his brilliant and darkly funny previous film Death of a Bureaucrat – composed a deadpan, caustic and fascinating look into the existential ennui, emotional alienation, amorous pursuits, political ambivalence, crisscrossing memories and intimate imaginings of Sergio (Sergio Corrieri), a well-to-do man and self-professed intellectual residing in an upscale Havana apartment. He harbours a disparaging view of the vapid Batista-era bourgeoisie and demonstrates scorn when he sees them fleeing the country, including his wife with whom his marriage was in doldrums. However, his inertia, privilege and false sense of self-importance, rather than any real political convictions, make him stay back. His classist attitude towards fellow citizens and moral shallowness are manifested during his frivolous and exploitative affair with Elena (Daisy Granados), a young and naïve working-class girl, who he treats with superiority and disdain for embodying his country’s underdevelopment. He therefore exists in an asynchronous flux, fantasizing about his housemaid, spying from his balcony, remembering an ex-girlfriend, attending political discourses, and sliding towards irrelevance. Adapted from Edmundo Desnoes’s novel Inconsolable Memories, this stunningly shot and composed film – interspersed with documentary footage and experimental formal choices – manifested its revolutionary consciousness through negative dialectics, sharp critique of Sergio’s entrenched bourgeois consciousness, and instigation of viewers’ participation in reconciling the paradoxes and contradictions.

p.s. This is a revisit. My earlier review of the film can be found here.

Director: Tomas Gutierrez Alea

Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Political Drama/Existential Drama

Language: Spanish

Country: Cuba