Customer Reviews

Lost City [HD DVD]

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In watching The Lost City, you have to evaluate it on two levels. One is the purely cinematic approach, or simply is it a good movie, and the other is from a historical/political statement point of view.

As a movie the best parts are the beautiful photography, locations, costumes and music. It really is a treat for the eyes and the ears. Is it long? yes it's long. But after seeing the film for the second time, I can't see where there was room for a lot of trimming.

Overall the acting in the film was good, with some weak spots. As a movie it's definitely worth seeing and the film doesn't deserve a lot of the negative reviews it's gotten. I suspect those have more to do with the political/historical aspects of the film which I referred to before.

This film will offend a lot of people that have bought into the idea of Fidel Castro as a benevolent dictator and Che Guevara as a righteous revolutionary. This film exposes them for the cruel opportunists that they are/were.

The film makes no bones about the need to remove the (then) dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista but also unequivocally shows that what happened next was far worse for all involved.

Some have criticized this film for not showing "the grinding poverty" of the masses in pre-Castro Cuba. There's a reason for that. There wasn't that much of it back then. The Cuban revolution was one led and funded by the middle and upper classes and supported by intellectuals throughout the island. They wanted democracy not a totalitarian dictatorship.

Cabrera-Infante, the screenplay author does a great job in showing us the differing approaches to getting rid of Batista by putting one of Fico's (Andy Garcia) brothers in the 26th of July movement (Castro's group) and another in the Revolutionary Directorate (a competing revolutionary group). In the end Castro's group seizes power and squashes opposition. In other words, the bad guys won.

You'll need to see the movie to judge it's value as a work of art, but this movie goes a long way toward telling the untold (or rather unlistened-to) story of what happened and is happening in Cuba.

This is an artistic masterpiece, in terms of the story, the plot, the music, cinematography, fashion of that epoc in Cuba, settings sceenery,etc. The blend of the background-forground music with the action is amazing. Even though fiction, the historic value is remarkable: representation of events, sequence of events, magnitud of events, vingnets of issues and characteristics of the process, representation of the Cuban spirit, etc.

I'm a 65 year-old Cuban woman who lived through that historic time. I'm a psychologist, mother of seven children , all successfull college graduates and grandmother of 19 children.
I'm very greatful to Andy Garcia for the gift of this movie.
Maria T. Carbonell, Montgomery Village, Maryland

For many of us who have lived through our own "Lost City," watching this film was a bittersweet experience. Andy Garcia has given us an artful, albeit realistic and truthful expression of the tragedy that befell the people and beautiful Island of Cuba. Not only was the movie entertaining and captivating, it was beautifully filmed, evoking images of a time and place we can never go back to. The casting was brilliant and the acting very compelling---you could tell that for many of them the movie was "personal." Amazing that this film made it to the screen given its honest portrayal of the brutal architects of the Cuban revolution, particularly Hollywood's darlings, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. I can't help but laugh (although I should cry) every time I see the blissfully ignorant adulation for Che and company...perhaps if more people see the movie they might think twice before sporting their ugly mugs on their t-shirts....way to go Andy!

Andy Garcia's Lost City is very much a tour de force on the Cuban Revolution of 1958 and how that country "achieved" the condition it's been in ever since. In this respect, the film compares very well with David Lean's treatment of Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago. Apart from the obvious differences in time and place, Garcia's work centers its setting on the lost Cuban cabaret scene, with musical and dance numbers that will almost certainly never be matched. This fills the same function as Lean's majestic cinematography of Moscow and the Urals in Zhivago and in each case the focal point really is the film.

That isn't to say though that it is lacking in fine performances. Most of the Hispanic actors other than Garcia may not be particularly familiar to North American audiences, but the acting is excellent in a project where many of them worked for scale plus in a labor of love. As might be expected, director/star Garcia leads the way with a performance full of subtleties of expression that I quite frankly thought was beyond him. By way of comparison, the very best aspects of his performance in the last third of Godfather III are distilled to quality and sensitivity a hundred times better than he showed there.

Ordinarily, I would expect such a fine performance to be a launching pad for many more mature roles than he's played to date, but this doesn't take into account the great risk Garcia took in producing a film hostile to Castro and communists. Undoubtedly this puts him at great risk in the Twenty First Century world of Hollywood, where those figures are considered heroes, if not secular saints. In fact, Garcia is quite open in stating that he was forced to go outside of the normal Hollywood funding sources in order to finance The Lost City. One can only hope that such a finely crafted film and performance will be appropriately recognized and not punished in the Marxist milieu of the American film industry. The Lost City is a product of great courage of conviction, which is rewarded in almost every aspect of the performances.

The movie is a strange mix of Casablanca, The Godfather, and any number of Hollywood musicals from the 40's and 50's. This makes sense given that the writer, Guillermo Cabrera Infante (maybe Cuba's greatest writer) was a huge fan of and liked to write about American movies and Cuban music. His stories are a blend of comedy and sex and violence and almost always about Havana, and he loved to use word-play and puns. Supposedly, he is represented in the movie by the Bill Murray character, which sometimes seems jarring and out of place unless you are familiar with Cabrera Infante - I think he would have loved it. Personally, I like that the movie shows that the Castro revolution was not a "peasant revolution" (as people in the U.S., including some movie critics, seem to believe) but was actually driven and financed by the upper class. I like that it shows Batista's regime in almost as bad a light as Castro's. And I like that it shows Ché Guevara not as some romantic hero but as a ruthless killer for whom "the end justifies the means." And, most of all, the vintage Cuban music by artists like Beny Moré and Bola de Nieve is simply wonderful and wonderfully used throughout the film.

The movie might be about 20 minutes too long and in some scenes the characters tend to talk too much in slogans rather than natural speech. But García wanted to be faithful to Cabrera Infante's script because, as he says, "you don't rewrite Hemingway." (Actually, this is not true: William Faulkner changed much of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not when he adapted it for the movie, and it's a great movie - better than the book.) But anyway, what the hell... Thumbs up for The Lost City! (Ebert and Roper agree!)

Andy Garcia does a superb job of telling the story of Cuba from the perspective of one family caught in the turmoil of the revolution.

(Spoilers!)

It is the story of one family composed of 3 brothers, one is a musician whose life revolves around his family and his music lounge;one brother is a student at university--it is not clear what the other one's occupation is. Their father is a university professor who believes in Ghandi's philosophy of passive resistance. But one brother is captivated by Fidel Castro and joins the rebels. The other brother is also lured into the political fray and only Andy Garcia's character,
Fico, is apolitical.

There is a parallelism in the break up of the country with the break up of the family. Family affinities are either strengthened or discarded depending on which side of the revolution one chooses to ally one's self with. This is the tragedy that is Cuba--it deposed a bloody dictator with a bloodier one.

Similarly, Fico's love for Aurora (his brother's widow) parallels his love for his Cuba. He loves her and he will love her forever; yet, he has to go away. Aurora chooses to stay in Cuba--she believes that communism is the the road to follow; Fico chooses to leave for New York--freedom is non-negotiable--it holds the highest value in his heart.

Wonderful story telling and directing from Andy Garcia. He presents this heartbreaking story with passion and understanding of its turbulent history. The poem at the end of the film is equally haunting in its beauty...to quote a portion:

"Todo es hermoso y constante, Todo es musica y rezo, Y todo, como el diamante, Antes que luz, es carbon."

(Everything is beautiful and faithful, Everything is music and prayer, And everything--like the diamond, Before it sparkles, is coal.")

Forgive me if I translated it wrong; maybe someone can translate it more accurately and lyrically. But you get the idea.

I really loved watching this film!

this movie i got to say i was not looking forward to seeing, i thought for a twelve year old this is going to be really boring,i was wrong. this movie was really touching to me and my mother. and i didnt even see cuba but my mom did which i think is really sad because she cried a lot. she was telling me how this had happened to her with no notification she thought she was just going on aboat for a while she waved bye like if she was going to see them again sadly she didnt my grand paents didnt tell her she was never coming back.

THE LOST CITY represents a 16-year dream come true for Director Andy Garcia. As he conversationally explains in a very fine addendum to the DVD of his film, this film is an obsession, a work of love that allowed him to revisit the country of his birth through understanding the changes through the sounds of intoxicating music. If at times this movie seems to lag in storyline because of all the interruptive musical numbers, those lags are some of the finest part of this richly colorful, beautifully photographed (in the Dominican Republic), well written by Guillermo Cabrera Infante romantic view of Cuba's turbulent history in the 1950s.

Fico Fellove, owner of the famous Tropico nightclub in 1958 Havana, is a member of a wealthy, intensely close family who despite any other commitments meet for dinners at 6 PM sharp each day. But there is revolution in the air and the family, headed by father Tomas Milian, mother Millie Perkins, uncle Richard Bradford, and sons Luis (Nestor Carbonell) with wife Aurora (Ines Satre) and Ricardo (Enrique Murciano) react in varying ways. As Batista's dictatorship begins to be challenged the family responds: Ricardo aligns with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara (intensely portrayed by fine actor Jsu Garcia) while Luis aligns with counterrevolutionaries. While the battle builds Fico is fighting his own inner wars with big time crime - Meyer Lansky (Dustin Hoffman) who wants to alter his club, and the soldiers who would abuse his Tropico, kill his lead singer, and murder his close friend Captain Castel (Steven Bauer).

The Revolution happens and the story is centered on how it disseminates the Fellove family. While Fico's brothers struggle Fico decides to escape to America, leaving behind all that he loved - family, Aurora whom he promised Luis he would marry if Luis died, and the memories conjured by the Cuban music. How the tale ends is understood and appreciated best by Cuban exiles, but Garcia brings those feelings of mixed emotions about Cuba pre and post revolution to all of us.

There are many interesting sidebars to this film: Bill Murray plays 'the writer' who seems to be a mixture of a Greek chorus and Fico's sublimated self; the tobacco/cigar industry is carefully examined; the 'face' of the Fidel regime is focused in the personage of soldier/guard Miliciana Muñoz (Elizabeth Peña) who embodies the totalitarian downside of the promised 'revolution'. And the musical numbers, well choreographed, designed, and performed, serve as inserted relief in the more tense moments - such as the storming of Batista's palace.

The movie clocks in at 2 1/2 hours and while it seems there is little that could have been excised from the original, certainly more character motivation and development would have made for a better understanding of the plot. But in all this is a movie made out of love by a fine cast and shows Garcia as a capable director in his first directorial outing. And oh the music! Grady Harp, August 06

When I left the theatre, everyone in the audience was clapping! Unbelievable movie, music and cinematography. Kudos to Garcia, Hoffman and Murray for having the courage to tell the true story of Cuba in such a beautiful, moving way. Must see!! Irene

I am 34 years old woman, I was born in Cuba and left with my parents in 1979. I learned so much watching this movie and wished that I was not robbed of the CUBA that once was.
This movie showed the Cuba that was left to a man (Castro) that hates his people and has destroyed not only a country, but families. And Che Guevarra, that was not a HERO as most people see him but a callous murderer.
The love of country and music of my people was depicted so beautifully by Andy. The scenes of the beaches, as I know that they were not filmed in Cuban it reminded me of my childhood vacations with my parents in the beaches we were allowed to go.
It is amazing to me how the mind tends to forget unpleasant thoughts, and how anything just triggers all repressed memories. As, Andy was leaving Cuba I remembered (even as young as I was) the way my mother cried when her wedding ring that was passed down from generation to generation was taken from her finger because it was "government property." Or how I remember my Abuelita and Tia Maria waiving good bye to us from the balcony of Jose Marti Aeropuerto. Little did I know that would be the last time I saw them. I shouldn't have worn make up that day...as I saw my mother to my right and my father cry as they relived that tragic day.
Andy, THANK YOU so much for your dedication to the love of your country and your people.