Love and Suicide (2005) - Support Obama in lifting the embargo from Cuba

LOVE AND SUICIDE, co-written by Lisa France and Luis Moro, directed by Lisa France is a the first narrative film made in Havana, Cuba since Castro’s revolution.  Recently shown at the Fine Arts Theatre in Los Angeles, there was a poll taken whether one thought the forty seven year embargo should be lifted.  Regardless of who will follow Castro, the embargo has had dire consequences to the people who live there.  McCain is for keeping the embargo.  Obama is for lifting it.

Almost off topic and never mentioned in the movie itself is Guantanamo Bay.  Due to a 1903 treaty, the United States has a naval base on Cuba that has had its own controversy of violating human rights and ignoring the rules of the Geneva convention to the detainees that were signed off by Donald Rumsfeld.

LOVE AND SUICIDE is a narrative of which the main character played by Kamar de Las Reyes arrives from Cuba having a real drug and alcohol problems.  For myself, I’ve seen way too many indies that start off with the main character on the floor puking his guts out and was almost ready to dismiss it as “seen it all before”.  All I need is to see is another depressing movie.  But the voice over, in Spanish, it a prayer every Catholic knows, “In the name of the father, the son and holy spirit. Amen.“  When not spoken by a priest, it’s the beginning of a confession.

Moro plays a Cuban who exists in the poor quarters of Havana, which is where most of population lives.  There is humor when he constantly picks at food his wife is making and their struggles to raise five children.  Las Reyes attracts and is attracted to Daisy McCrackin, a red hair white woman who understands some Spanish but only speaks English, thus making this a bilingual picture.  At the crux of Las Reyes identity crises is that he’s been a Cuban in denial and must accept the fact that he is half Cuban on his father’s side, half Puerto Rican on his mother’s side.  It’s a topic not thought of by most Americans, but there is a rivalry among the Caribbean islands, Cuba being the low man of the totem pole.  Truth be told, French speaking Haitians argue they are the low man but Cuba is the one with the worst relations with the United States.

Once he accepts it, he shows McCraCkin the sites of Havana.  It is the city that’s the real selling point of this picture.  This is a brave film.  I just wish the story was a little stronger but as an eye opener to a difficult culture, it works.

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