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EAST OF HAVANA
Written & Directed by: Jauretsi Saizarbitoria & Emilia Menocal.
Produced by: Juan Carlos Saizarbitoria, Meagan Riley-Grant, Clark Peterson & Charlize Theron.
Photographed by: Christophe Lanzenberg.
Edited by: Fernando Villena.
Music by: Paul Heck & Federico Fong.
Released by: Sony BMG.
Language: Spanish with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: USA. 82 minutes. Not Rated.

East of Havana opens with one rapper’s challenge to the stereotype of Cuba as the country of “the mulatto girl, the old man with the cigar, the folk music, rumba, and all that partying that we’re always laughing and everything is great.”

Cuban-American debut directors Jauretsi Saizarbitoria and Emilia Menocal go to the Alamar area, allegedly the birthplace of Cuban hip-hop, leisurely spending time amidst the relaxed beach and fishing culture, in contrast to the crowded Havana slums featured in David Turnley’s La Tropical where all ages of the poor danced their troubles away in escapist sensuality. Here, a rapper brags that lyrically rebellious hip-hop has displaced salsa.

This profile centers on three rappers who make up the independent production collective, El Cartel. Introduced in rapid fire succession are swaggering Michel “Mikki Flow” Hermida, philosophical Soandres Del Rio Ferrer, and feisty entrepreneur Magyori Martinez Veitia.

With only a few weeks available to film after considerable red tape to even travel to Cuba, the filmmakers establish less context than directors Matt Mochary and Jeff Zimbalist in documenting the not-dissimilar Afro-reggae protest music of Brazil in Favela Rising. This film mostly follows the three young rappers around their daily routines of struggling to support themselves so they can record in a studio and illegally distribute their music. Far too many extended sequences follow the rappers in their non-musical lives with their families and riding on crowded old buses.

Each came of age during the “Special Period,” when the withdrawal of Russian subsidies sent the Cuban economy into a tailspin. Poetry slam style, they recite from notebooks full of lyrics expressing their frustrations and hopes for the future. They rail against lack of government support, even as the regime tries to co-opt the hip-hop community by sponsoring the annual International Festival of Rap Cubano, seen in very brief clips of previous festivals, while insisting on approving lyrics in advance. Ominous news updates of Hurricane Charley in August 2004 become symbolic of the threats to the music and this showcase, so it is unfortunate that many of the pieces are not subtitled for non-Spanish speakers.

Relating more to the hard-core American hip-hop of the ‘90s, the filmmakers and the Cuban rappers, despite their elaborate TV and radio antennas set to overseas media, are either unaware of or ignore reggaeton that was blowing out of Puerto Rico at this same time and explosively combining hip-hop with Latin rhythms and social consciousness. The isolation of the Cubans, with their yearning to travel, is emotionally represented through a touching tangent of extended interviews with Michel’s brother, Vladimir, who pushed off into the looming blue ocean in 1994 and after a year at Guantánamo settled in Rochester, NY. His departure inspired his younger brother to question the regime, and the film’s My Space page has announced that Michel has recently moved to the States. Nora Lee Mandel
February 2, 2007