Abstract: The success of Tomas Gutierrez Alea's film, 'Strawberry
and Chocolate,' with Cuban
audiences is attributed to the social need of Cubans to discuss
the place of homosexuals in the
Revolution. The theme of intolerance toward a number of issues
such as the black market and
discrimination against homosexuals is central to the film which
Alea decided should be set in
1979 when discrimination against homosexuals was at its peak.
Tomas Gutierrez Alea has been the most prominent of the filmmakers
working in Cuba's
government-supported film institute, the Instituto Cubano del
Arte e Industria Cinematograficos
(ICAIC). Gutierrez Alea is a committed revolutionary; and his
best features explore the social,
political, and historical dimensions of the revolutionary process.
Frequently this exploration
shows a sharp critical edge as the director examines and critiques
the flaws of revolutionary
Cuban society. Death of a Bureaucrat (1966) satirically spoofs
an excessive bureaucratization
that hounds Cubans even beyond the grave. In Up to a Point (1984),
the director takes on the
machismo and sexual double standard very much alive amongst Cuban
male intellectuals and his
own companeros in ICAIC.
Gutierrez Alea once again turns his critical gaze to Cuban revolutionary
society in his latest feature, the superbly acted Strawberry and Chocolate
(1993). This comedy-drama follows the development of a friendship
between two young men. The straight David is a naive but convinced
Communist militant who was brought up on the party line and now
aspires to be a writer. Diego is an intelligent, cultured, and sophisticated
gay who has seen his options in society disappear because of his sexual
orientation. At the end of the film, discrimination and professional and
personal pressure are such that Diego opts to accept the help of a friendly
foreign embassy in order to emigrate. He leaves in spite of his
pro-Revolution sympathies and his friend's claims that there is a place
for
gays in the Cuban Revolution. A subplot explores the virginal
David's romantic and sexual
relationships with two women. The action is set in Havana in
1979, a period of considerable
discrimination against homosexuals. To tell this story, the director
effectively draws on the
conventions of mainstream realist cinema; he does not break new
ground stylistically. The film is
freely adapted from the extremely popular short story by Send
Paz, "The Wolf, the Woods and
the New Man."
Given the profound economic crisis currently gripping Cuba, it
is astonishing that a feature such
as Strawberry and Chocolate could be produced. The situation
in ICAIC is desperate. Top
directors such as Gutierrez Alea earn the approximate equivalent
of $5.00 per month, and the
once relatively well-funded ICAIC filmmakers can now undertake
a feature only if coproduction
money is available. The low-budget Strawberry and Chocolate,
for instance, could not have been
produced without Mexican and Spanish support. Production problems
were further complicated
when Gutierrez Alea, sick with cancer, had to undergo surgery.
At that time a frequent
collaborator, Juan Carlos Tabio, was brought on board the project
as codirector. In spite of these
problems, the film boasts strong production values.
Strawberry and Chocolate continues a trend in ICAIC in the 1990s
that has led filmmakers to
examine their society in an increasingly critical fashion. Daniel
Diaz Torres's Alice in
Wondertown (1991) was such a far-reaching critique of an out-of-killer
revolutionary society
that authorities prematurely yanked it from exhibition and thus
created a major scandal (see
Cineaste, Vol. XX, No. 1). Gerardo Chijona's Adorable Lies (1991)
exposes a corrupt
functionary who uses the funds of the Revolution for his own
personal gain. But the serious
treatment of gay characters had been almost unknown in Cuban
revolutionary cinema before
Strawberry and Chocolate.
This cinematic invisibility of gay characters is not surprising
since the treatment of homosexuals
under the Revolution represents a dark stain on the revolutionary
record. In 1965 Fidel Castro
told Lee Lockwood (in Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel) that "we would
never come to believe that a
homosexual could embody the conditions and requirements of conduct
that would enable us to
consider him a true Revolutionary, a true Communist militant.
A deviation of that nature clashes
with the concept we have of what a militant Communist must be."
In the mid-1960s the infamous
UMAP work camps (Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Produccion)
sought to rehabilitate alleged
antisocial elements such as homosexuals. The purges and denunciations
of homosexuals continued
into the 1980s. Today discrimination against homosexuals still
represents a major problem. The
Revolution has meaningfully dealt with gender and racial discrimination
but not with
discrimination against homosexuals, and they are still restricted
from joining the Cuban
Communist Party. In recent interviews, Castro has shown a more
tolerant attitude towards the
homosexual community, but until very recently most gays had no
group to represent them.
The enormous popularity of Strawberry and Chocolate in Cuba has
now succeeded in placing the
situation and rights of gays squarely on people's agendas to
be discussed and debated. Socially
and politically, therefore, Strawberry and Chocolate is a breakthrough
film for Cuba. As an
ideological project, it appears to represent a belated attempt
to recuperate the gay community for
the Cuban revolutionary project. The film's message of tolerance
can be read as a call for
revolutionary solidarity in the face of the current economic
debacle and an increasingly cloudy
political future.
Outside of Cuba, Strawberry and Chocolate represents considerably
less, since its sexual politics
are dated. In interviews and public pronouncements, both directors
have stressed that the central
theme of their film is tolerance and that the gay subtheme is
merely a convenient illustration of
that question. The codirectors, who are straight, thus take a
liberal approach to a universal
theme. This liberal approach and the film's easy stylistic accessibility
may contribute to
international success at the box office, but at the same time
these factors prevent the film from
being radical either esthetically or politically. And Strawberry
and Chocolate is not a gay film. It
does not significantly explore the history of homosexual oppression
in Cuba; gay sexual pleasure
is not shown and gay relationships are given short shrill; and
the camera generally prefers
David's heterosexual point of view. Furthermore, the film's gay
protagonist perhaps too
conveniently combines physical attraction, artistic sensibility,
and socialist and nationalist
viewpoints in order to assure mainstream audience appeal Strawberry
and Chocolate, then, is a
modest project in comparison to the director's radical masterpiece
Memories of
Underdevelopment (1968), where an innovative self-reflective
style meshed perfectly with the
filmmaker's central concern of subtly and complexly portraying
a middle class intellectual
trapped between his sympathy for the Revolution and his inability
to commit himself fully to it.
The commercial release of Strawberry and Chocolate in the U.S.
is a welcome event because
U.S. authorities have at times hounded Gutierrez Alea - by, for
example, denying his visa
requests or blocking exhibition of his works. This interviewer's
videotape copy of Memories of
Underdevelopment was confiscated by U.S. Customs in Los Angeles
when he entered the country
on December 11, 1993, after having legally attended the annual
International Festival of New
Latin American Cinema in Havana. U.S. Customs, however, neglected
to seize the tapes of
interviews with Tabio and Gutierrez Alea recorded in Havana during
that festival. The
conversation with Gutierrez Alea continued in Juarez, Mexico,
during the Second Festival of
Latinamerican Cinema Paso del Norte in August 1994. The interviews
have been translated from
the Spanish and edited by Dennis West and Joan M. West.
Cineaste: Revolution is the central theme of almost all your films.
Why take up the subject of the
intolerance of some revolutionary companeros precisely at this
time?
Tomas Gutierrez Alea: I think that intolerance is not just a current
theme. This theme could have
been examined a long time ago, but I confronted it and decided
to make this movie after having
read the short story by Senel. That doesn't mean that I hadn't
thought about the theme before. I
had just never found a way to approach it. When the short story
appeared, I realized that that
was what I wanted to do.
Cineaste: Why is the action of the film set in 1979 instead of 1993?
Gutierrez Alea: 1979 represents the end of a historical period,
because the Mariel boatlift
occurred in 1980, and that caused many things to change. So we
preferred not to burden our plot
with additional complications. The period before 1979 was also
the time of greatest repression
or discrimination against homosexuals.
Cineaste: The Revolution's social problems that you examine in
addition to intolerance - the
black market, homosexuals' right to work, the freedom of the
artist, and revolutionary
surveillance - are they just as much problems in Cuban society
today as they were in 1979?
Gutierrez Alea: Yes, of course. The black
market has become so generalized that all
Cubans, in order to survive, must resort
to it in one way or another. And there has
always been revolutionary watchfulness. It
increases during critical periods; at other
times it is less. At times there is a real
reason to have revolutionary
watchfulness, but at other times it may be
a pretext to commit certain excesses. It
has always represented a threat to the
counterrevolution - more particularly in
earlier revolutionary times than now - so
surveillance is something real. But at
times it has dampened people's activities
and made their lives impossible. The best
way to counter this problem is, first of
all, to become aware that this is an aberration, and then to
make fun of it a bit - which is just
what the film does.
As for homosexuals' right to work, they have always been able
to work. However, in given
periods homosexuals have been barred from certain types of employment.
They have been
barred from teaching, for example, since it represents contact
with youngsters. Now there is
greater flexibility in job opportunities for homosexuals. In
the case of representing Cuba abroad,
for example, the appointment of representatives used to be handled
with kid gloves when
homosexuals were involved. Many people were against appointing
them because they were
considered more vulnerable to scandal and blackmail - and that's
true, we've seen it in countries
such as England and the United States - but things are very different
nowadays for homosexuals.
Many Cuban homosexuals are now open about their sexual orientation.
Others are not open
about it - just like anywhere else - but there is a new level
of awareness concerning
homosexuality.
Cineaste: What about the problem of freedom of artistic expression,
which is exemplified by
German and his sculptures?
Gutierrez Alea: The film itself demonstrates that things can be
said. A couple of years ago there
was a scandal concerning the film Alice in Wondertown. That scandal
was like a vaccination [for
the government] because that situation was so utterly stupid
and heavy-handed. That sort of
situation cannot be repeated; the political cost is too high.
Ten years ago the sort of censorship in the plastic arts that
happened to German in the film was
indeed common. Nowadays I have seen exhibits of paintings that
were much more daring. For
instance, I remember one installation that alludes to the exodus
on rafts from Cuba. It was quite
interesting, very dramatic. Formerly this would have been banned,
but not now. So, this question
depends on the precise historical moment. That is not to say
that censorship has disappeared, but
one always finds a way to say things.
Cineaste: The performances by the two lead actors represent one
of the great successes of the
film. How did you select and work with these actors?
Gutierrez Alea: Our initial conception of these two characters
was quite different from the final
version seen on screen. According to our original concept, the
gay character, Diego, should have
been a mature individual between the ages of thirty-five and
forty. He would not necessarily
have been physically attractive, but he would have possessed
an interior attraction because of his
maturity, wisdom, and personality. He was to have exerted a certain
fascination over the other
character, but not a fascination based on physical attraction.
The other character, according to our
original conception, was to have been a
twenty-something-year-old youth who
was inexperienced, very naive, very
young, very immature, and very
beautiful. He was to have been a
prototypical ephebus. And originally
the gay character was to become
immediately enamored of him - love at
first sight.
We just couldn't find the appropriate
actors to fulfill these initial concepts of
the characters. Finally we had to make
a concession, and I am extremely
satisfied with what we did. Now I think
it would have been a mistake to have a
homosexual character who was not as
attractive at first sight as the one we have. Attractiveness
is one of the qualities the character
needs in order for the spectator to identify with him. An empathy
needs to be established
between the gay character and the viewer. The actor that we chose
was able to do this. It all
would have been harder with a different actor who did not possess
that gracia or charisma.
Vladimir [Cruz], the actor who portrays David, is very intelligent.
He was capable of playing
this role quite well; because of his age, he is very close to
this character. He is also an actor who
possesses a certain charm, particularly in his eyes. But that
charm is not initially evident, it must
be discovered gradually.
Cineaste: Does Diego represent a somewhat stereotypical loca?
Gutierrez Alea: No, no. He's definitely not a stereotype. Diego
is not really even a loca. The
equivalent in English of loca is 'queen' - a gay who expresses
himself in a very extroverted, very
spectacular manner, who flaunts his homosexuality. His homosexuality
is at the center of his
social being. Diego, on the other hand, is a gay who has other
concerns. He is a refined and
cultivated man who is relatively mature, and he conducts himself
as a normal person. But, of
course, as he says, he likes men.
Now, it is true that at certain times he does conduct himself
in a slightly effeminate way. For
example, at the beginning of the film, when the characters are
in the Coppelia Ice Cream Parlor,
Diego conducts himself in an ostentatious way because he is committed
to conquering that young
man. But, afterwards, little by little, his conduct becomes more
sober. In other words, he's
definitely not a stereotype.
Cineaste: Would you describe your approach to working with the
actors and with your long-time
cinematographer, Mario Garcia Joya?
Gutierrez Alea: When it comes to the mise-en-scene, the actor
is the most difficult and the most
important element - the element the director must be most careful
about. I have always tried to
create a mise-en-scene that functions around the actor so that
he feels comfortable and his acting
feels natural and organic. My point of departure is always improvisation.
We select the key
scenes that will define the characters, and those are the only
scenes we rehearse. I think that if
the actor can capture his character by rehearsing a key scene,
he will be able to interpret this
character coherently in any other dramatic situation.
I am also careful not to subject actors to rigorously pre-planned
movements that would make
them dependent on the camera. Many times an actor becomes uncomfortable
if he feels he cannot
deviate so much as a single millimeter in his movements. So we
always try to create a
mise-en-scene where the camera is subordinated to the actors.
Mayito [Mario Garcia Joya] has
played a key role in this. Over the many years that Mayito and
I have worked together, we have
developed a style of work characterized by mutual comprehension.
Our stylistic approach has
always been to have the camera function in relation to the players,
their situation, and their
movements. This is what gives a very fluid dimension to our mise-en-scene.
Mayito uses the hand-held camera a lot. His ability is so extraordinary
that it is frequently very
difficult to believe that a scene was shot with a hand-held camera.
His camera is very steady. In
addition, Mayito uses some devices that he has invented. For
instance, he or an assistant places a
rod underneath the camera when it must be stationary, and that
rod is removed when the camera
must begin to move and follow a character. His inventions work
marvelously. You see a
tremendous fluidity in these different mises-en-scene. I would
go so far as to say that the fluidity
is even more perfect than if he had used a Steadicam, because
when a Steadicam is used the
camera floats a bit. Mayito, though, can keep his moving camera
perfectly stable.
These kinds of devices are part of an esthetic perspective, but
they have also been invented
because of our limited resources. We cannot use the kinds of
sophisticated equipment that
characterize big-budget productions. All this has instilled in
us a spirit of invention that
overcomes our production problems.
Cineaste: In Senel Paz's short story, the protagonist's introspection
really stands out. Is your
occasional use of voice-over narration an attempt to transfer
this aspect of Paz's short story into
cinematic terms?
Gutierrez Alea: We found this the best way to handle some sequences.
But we did not do this
because of any need to be faithful to the original short story.
We changed the original story.
Cineaste: Who wrote the script for the film, and why did the screenwriters
invent Nancy, who
does not appear in the short story?
Gutierrez Alea: Senel wrote the script, but he always worked with
me. He would go and write
the scenes after we had discussed them. The entire process of
scriptwriting was a collaborative
effort, although he did the actual writing.
Some things - the character Nancy, for example - were Senel's
invention. The creation of Nancy
was a fantastic idea because we felt the necessity to make the
relationship between the two men
more complex. That relationship could not remain as linear as
it was in the short story, and we
felt that an additional character could help us plumb the depths
of that relationship. Senel had
already created this character in a previous film called Adorable
Lies, and it occurred to him to
transfer her to this film - the same character with exactly the
same name - but in this different
dramatic situation - namely, as Diego's friend.
Cineaste: I find the character Miguel to be very dogmatic, and
close-minded. He also seems
rather sketchy in comparison to the two protagonists.
Gutierrez Alea: I agree that the character is somewhat schematic.
We didn't feel the need to
develop him any further. After all, since he is a supporting
character, he should be drawn
clearly. It seemed to me that he could be sufficiently characterized
just as he is - in black and
white - a character who is a symbol more than anything else.
Cineaste: Does one see in the film, as exemplified in the figure
of Miguel, the Cuban
Communists' fear of things foreign - foreign ideologies, foreign
ideas, foreign art?
Gutierrez Alea: I don't think that's in the film either explicitly
or implicitly. Something different
is in the film. It is true that a denunciatory and violent extremism
arose in the very early stages
of the Revolution. It got to the point that a definite effort
did exist to prevent or diminish
manifestations of foreign culture.
For example, even in music, the most abstract art form, there
was a pronounced prejudice -
namely, against Anglo-Saxon music. I remember, for example, that
although the music of the
Beatles was not banned, it was neither played nor listened to.
Listening to that music was
considered a sign of ideological weakness. But this occurred
in the very early years of the
Revolution. This was not the case in the period when the film
is set. By then the Revolution had
reached a more mature stage.
Cineaste: What about the case of the famous political novel Conversation
in the Cathedral written
by the rightist Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa? Diego uses
this book to entice David
because it's unavailable in Cuba.
Gutierrez Alea: The problem with the book is not that it's foreign
but rather that its author is a
rightist. This book, in fact, does interest us because it's a
Latin American novel. Here in Cuba
[the publishing house] Casa de las Americas promotes Latin American
literature. But Vargas
Llosa is not promoted because he acted in a very militant and
aggressive way against the
Revolution. Therefore, he is considered an enemy. That does not
mean we do not consider him
to be a great author.
Cineaste: Would you comment on your use of the poster for Some Like It Hot?
Gutierrez Alea: At the end of the film, there is a homage to Some
Like It Hot. At the end of the
American film, you will remember, Jack Lemmon says to Joe E.
Brown, "But I'm not a
woman." And Brown answers, "Well, nobody's perfect." In our film
we turn this around a little
- "Too bad you're not gay," with the answer being, "No one is
perfect." As for the poster, we
wanted to set up an allusion to Some Like It Hot early on in
our film.
Cineaste: One of the central themes of the film is the question
of Cuban identity. Would you
comment on the Cuban altar in Diego's house and the film's use
of Cuban music?
Gutierrez Alea: That altar, which
was in the short story, defines
Diego's personality very well.
Diego is enamored of Cuban
culture. This aspect of his
personality makes the ending of the
film - when he must abandon his
country because he cannot live out
his potential fully - all the more
dramatic.
As for the music, I have always had
a particular enthusiasm for Cuban
music. It's always seemed to me that
Cuban music displays extraordinary
qualities, many of them unheralded.
The music of Ignacio Cervantes and
of other Cuban musicians from the
last century is virtually unknown.
Nevertheless, that music possesses excellent quality and great
richness. Strawberry and Chocolate
offered us the opportunity to use some of this music, specifically
in a scene where the two men
are listening to a pair of dances by Cervantes, "Goodby to Cuba"
and "Lost Illusions." The
nature of these musical pieces, as well as their titles, make
them very well suited to the dramatic
situation we wanted to develop.
Cineaste: Would you specifically relate Cervantes's "Lost Illusions"
to your thematic concern of
lost illusions?
Gutierrez Alea: In one scene, the protagonists are listening to
this music. They are both enjoying
the music, and Diego is enjoying the other man's presence. David
starts to feel uncomfortable
because of Diego's glances and communicates that to Diego. As
they are talking about the music,
Diego says to David, "That's called lost illusions." In other
words, the lost illusions refer to
Diego's illusions concerning David.
Of course, the theme of lost illusions appears in a more general
sense. Diego has also lost his
illusions as regards the Revolution. He had wanted to be a schoolteacher.
He had participated in
the literacy campaign, and he had been abundantly enthusiastic
about the Revolution. Then the
Revolution treated him badly and marginalized him.
Cineaste: One of your objectives in this film seems to be to pay
homage to "Cubanness." There is
an effort to recuperate the figure of Lezama Lima, to recuperate
little-known Cuban music, and
to recuperate a beautiful and decadent Havana, a Havana that
will continue to exist for who
knows how much longer.
Gutierrez Alea: Exactly. This is all dictated by an interior and
spiritual need that I feel. As for
Lezama, I could just as well have chosen another figure from
our literary history. The figure of
Lezama acquires a symbolic status because of his stature and
the fact that his novel, Paradise, had
been censured at one time.
Cineaste: I understand that it can now be readily purchased in Cuba.
Gutierrez Alea: Well, there are hardly any books available for
purchase now. They'll have to
bring out a new edition. But let me say this - his book had never
been censored; pages were not
removed from it. What happened was that after the book was published,
the entire printing was
withdrawn from circulation because the book contained a chapter
with references to
homosexuality. Such a repressive action was idiotic. Later, however,
the book did circulate
freely.
Cineaste: By paying homage to Lezama, do you want to recuperate
him for mainstream - nongay
- Cuban culture because he was a gay writer?
Gutierrez Alea: Actually, the film doesn't recuperate Lezama,
because he is already recuperated.
He has an extraordinary reputation. The film does pay very just
homage to him - not because he
was a gay writer, or part of a gay culture, or a writer who focused
exclusively on gay culture -
but because he was an author of universal stature who had at
one time suffered discrimination.
Cineaste: Does Diego's line of dialog - "How much we need another
voice!" - allude to Fidel
Castro's vast political power and the possible necessity of further
democratizing the Cuban
political system?
Gutierrez Alea: [Chuckles] Well, it seems obvious, doesn't it?
Of course, that line is said as a
joke, but a joke that contains a great measure of truth.
Cineaste: On December 10, 1993, at the closing ceremony of the
International Festival of New
Latin American Cinema in Havana, Strawberry and Chocolate walked
away with most of the top
prizes. Afterwards, in the Palace of the Revolution, Fidel Castro
held a reception for festival
guests featuring strawberry and chocolate ice cream served together
for dessert. Is this the
Comandante en Jefe's way of saluting your film and of signaling
an attitude of greater tolerance
in his government?
Gutierrez Alea: I don't remember that dessert being served.
Cineaste: I was a guest at the reception and that's the dessert I was served.
Gutierrez Alea: Really?
Cineaste: You didn't know?
Gutierrez Alea: No. [Chuckles] It was probably just a way to celebrate
the prize for a film called
Strawberry and Chocolate. That night he [Castro] invited the
actors and me for a drink with him.
As we chatted, we realized that he had not yet seen the film.
Jorge [Perugorria] made a joke that
alluded to something in the film, and he did not understand it.
If he had seen the film, the joke
would have been very obvious. In fact, he told us that he had
not had time to view the film yet,
but that he was going to see it. He did see it later, but he
hasn't expressed any opinion about it.
Cineaste: I understand that Strawberry and Chocolate has broken
box office records. Why has
the film had such social resonance in Cuba?
Gutierrez Alea: It opened right after the festival. There were
very long lines to see it, and it ran
for something like three months in Havana. I think it had that
response because it was a well told
story with a theme that many people wanted to discuss in public.
A theme that up until this time
had remained rather marginalized. I'm not referring just to the
theme of homosexuality, but
rather to the theme of intolerance in general. I think that people
really felt a great need to reflect
on this, and to reflect on it openly. For these reasons, the
film became a sociological
phenomenon.
Cineaste: Do you have any idea of the number of Cuban viewers who have seen the film?
Gutierrez Alea: Strawberry and Chocolate may hold the record for
the greatest number of
Cuban viewers. I don't know. But at any rate, it is the film
which has attracted the greatest
number of viewers in the shortest period of time.