Memories of Underdevelopment Review
By: T.J. “you have beautiful knees” Mulligan
It’s no secret that films in general are classified by their genres. Lethal Weapon, Kill Bill and X-Men are three uniquely different movies, but all fall under the umbrella genre of “action.” Other notables are drama, comedy, horror, documentary, family and so on. Just because a film easily fits into one of these categories does not inherently make it one-dimensional or bad, it just fits where it fits. Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s Memories of Underdevelopment is one of those films, however, that has a hard time finding it’s home in any of the previously mentioned genres. A dramatic narrative spliced with documentary footage, both telling a story of post revolutionary Cuba; this film is, for lack of any better words, unique.
Memories of Underdevelopment tells the story of Sergio, a man whose wife and most of his friends have fled Cuba following the Bay of Pigs, in the thick of the Cuban Missile Crisis. His story of this time in his life is told by scenes that seem to represent him remembering it from a never-seen future. Sergio’s is a story of dealing with lifestyle changes in a time of large-scale change for the country in which he lives.
This film is undoubtedly engaging. Alea splices his narrative with documentary-style footage of Cubans huddled into airports in an attempt to flee their native home, those left behind walking cautiously through the streets of Cuba, as well as newsreel-type footage and audio of figureheads of the country such as Fidel Castro and those within his regime. Throughout the film it’s difficult to tell if the documentary footage is meant to compliment the cinematic elements or if the narrative is meant to compliment the images of real life in Cuba at the time. It is this sort of confusion that at the same time awes and repels me from this picture.
The parts that are obviously scripted and a part of the fictional story of Sergio are played out well, using first-person perspective from time to time to give closer glimpses into his life. You truly feel as if you are seeing into the memories of Sergio, for better or worse, and getting a first-hand perspective as to why he does some of the things he does. Alea is obviously a very talented filmmaker with a keen eye for presenting a story in a different way, but the interchanging between documentary and story begins to feel grating very quickly and kept me wishing that it would just chose one genre or the other.
I give Memories of Underdevelopment 3 Ernest Hemingway-shot and mounted buffalo heads out of 5.
