Oscilloscope

Mile00106

I Am Cuba: The Ultimate Edition

Dir. Mikhail Kalatozov

On DVD 04/16/10

• Director Credits DVD features

SYNOPSIS

Started only a week after the Cuban missile crisis and designed to be Cuba's answer to both Sergei Eisenstein's propaganda masterpiece, Potemkin and Jean-Luc Godard's freewheeling romance, Breathless, I Am Cuba turned out to be something quite unique - a wildly schizophrenic celebration of Communist kitsch, mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality. The plot, or rather plots, feverishly explore the seductive, decadent (and marvelously photogenic) world of Batista's Cuba - deliriously juxtaposing images of rich Americans and bikini-clad beauties sipping cocktails poolside with scenes of ramshackle slums filled with hungry children and gaunt old people. Using wide-angle lenses that distort and magnify and filters that transform palm trees into giant white feathers, Urusevsky's acrobatic camera achieves wild gravity-defying angles as it glides effortlessly through long continuous shots. But I Am Cuba is not just a catalog of bravura technique - it also succeeds in exploring the innermost feelings of the characters and their often desperate situations. Shown unsubtitled at the San Francisco International Film Festival, I Am Cuba received two standing ovations - during the screening. The first movie ever jointly presented by master filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, I Am Cuba is one of the great discoveries in cinema. It will change your view of cinema forever!

Credits

DVD Features:

Brand-new high-def master.
Both Spanish and Russian Soundtracks.
Full-length doc, THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH.
Full-length doc, FILM ABOUT MIKHAIL KALATOZOV.
Long Interview with Martin Scorsese.
Interview with co-author Yevgeney Yevtushenko.
Original American trailer.
Full-length booklet.
and more...