Abstract: Juan Carlos Tabio co-directed the film, 'Strawberry
and Chocolate,' with Tomas
Gutierrez Alea but denies that a dichotomy of styles is apparent
in the film. He attributes this to his
participation in the preparation before the film was actually
filmed. The message of the film
principally involves the question of perspective and how this
difference influence individual lives,
rather than the issue of discrimination in Cuban society toward
homosexuals.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT Cineaste Publishers Inc. 1995
Cineaste: Why did you and Gutierrez Alea codirect the film? How
did you divide the work as
codirectors, and what special difficulties did you encounter
in working together?
Juan Carlos Tabio: The reason we codirected is quite simple. Two
weeks before production began,
Titon [Gutierrez Alea] unexpectedly learned that he was going
to require surgery when the
shooting was scheduled. In a practical sense this meant postponing
filming, which would have been
traumatic for the project. He suggested to me that I work with
him so the film would not be
delayed during his hospitalization. Of course I accepted, for
many reasons. First of all, I was
familiar with the script. We had worked on it in our creative
workshop [grupo de creacion], and,
on a personal level, Titon and I have always worked together
on projects. I considered the script
very important and thought that it would be a shame if anything
were to harm this project.
I started working the next day on the film. I participated in the two-week
preparation period prior to shooting and we began
filming together. Then, when Titon had to go into the hospital,
I carried on as lone director of the
project. When Titon came back, we continued the shooting together
and also worked together
during the editing process. We never had a division of labor;
we simply worked together.
What were the difficulties of working together like this? Well,
the main difficulty we were
concerned about at first was the question of stylistic continuity,
that the film might be damaged by a
dichotomy of styles - one scene directed by Titon, one scene
directed by me. But I don't believe
that happened. The final product shows stylistic unity, a unity
that was achieved because I had been
participating in the project even before the shooting began.
Titon and I had worked out beforehand
the stylistic questions, questions of mise-en-scene, and so on.
Of course, the director of
photography participated actively in all this, so he also helped
to create this unity.
Cineaste: Would you comment on the motif of santeria [Afro-Cuban religion]?
Tabio: It appears in the short story. Diego is a strange mix of
a character, and one of his many and
varied interests is santeria. He is also a believer. He has an
image of Santa Barbara in his house, and
he even talks with it. His devotion to santeria does not prevent
him from having a deeply
humanistic culture, a Western culture. He is very familiar with
the entire history of Cuban
literature. He reads the latest works of world literature and
Latin American literature. He's a
serious reader of poets such as John Donne. He is a character
who is very amalgamated, very
baroque, very chaotic - something like Lezama Lima, his idol.
Cineaste: Up until now the theme of homosexuality has been little
treated in the films of ICAIC.
Why is that, and why is ICAIC taking up this theme now?
Tabio: Well, I would say that homosexuality has represented a
taboo or a fear well beyond the
boundaries of ICAIC. This fear is in our culture, Latin American
culture, and to some extent in
cultures worldwide. This theme has always been seen as somewhat
bothersome, something not to be
taken up. Of course, times change. I remember, for instance,
back when the works of Tennessee
Williams were being produced that the treatment of gay themes
was entirely repressed.
Today, I think homosexuality is part of our reality. Our film
takes up this theme for two reasons -
first of all, it is just, from a human and a cultural viewpoint,
to situate things in their rightful place,
or at least to give a retrospective look at this phenomenon.
Second, our film represents a hymn to
tolerance, to the possibility of mutual comprehension and to
the mutual enrichment of two persons
who are profoundly different. The difference between Diego and
David is not only homosexuality;
the difference is also in their ways of seeing the world, and
their mutual understanding and respect
lead to the enrichment of both of them. That, I believe, is really
the most profound message the
film has to offer.