Thomas Gutierrez Alea: In the Memory of the Underdevelopment

Thomas Gutierrez Alea's Memorias del Subdesarrollo (In the Memory of the Underdevelopment) (1968) on the pre-Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary worlds of intellectual community and the individuals in Cuba portrays the subjective perception of the central character, Sergio(Sergio Corrieri), whose intellectual perceptiveness offers his non-political vocabulary of the images on the representation of the ideological and the new cultural movement in Cuba. Indeed, his perception unfolds his isolation and alienation with the establishment of the new political situations discovered through his different point of views and juxtaposed with the narrative style of the film and his look of distanciation as Martin indicates in his book: " In Alea's Memorias del Subdesarrollo, arguably the most ambivalent Cuban film produced . Alea's ambivalence is not only filtered through the past (The Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961), it is embodied in the figure of Sergio , a representative of national bourgeoisie, a class dismantled, exiled and reviled by the time of the film's production" (Martin, 150). Obviously, Sergio's voice which is heard over the images defines and prepares a grotesque and suicidal confession of the man whose psychoanalytic look and narcissistic self-portrait construct the superficiality and the artificiality of his experience with the function of the new social reality.

The documentary footage which represents the Cuban socio-political history emphasizes on Sergio's unenthusiastic desire be involved and participate with the revolutionary occurrences, and evidently creates a kind of Brechtian distance to provoke the audience to consider the social anatomy of the atmosphere  which surrounds him. Obviously, the collage structure of the juxtaposed images in the film creates a contrast between Sergio's gaze and the reality represented by newsreels as Elena states in his book :

" Alea therefore used the newsreel as historical markers which contributed to the general feeling of authenticity, 'Collage' was not in itself something new in the cinema in 1968, but Alea used it in a profoundly original way. Beyond its function as historical maker, the exported juxtaposed images introduced a different point of view, which ran parallel to Sergio's. As a consequence, this device throws into relief the subjective quality of Sergio's gaze but conversely, it also emphasized discursive specificity of the newsreels" (Elena, 104).

His lack of power and dilemma to create a dialogue with the morality of the new ideological regime in Cuba through his subjective quality of the aesthetic images of the film appear perfectly to be the dialectical reasons for his self-paralysis, individualism and non-political relationship with the political life of everyday reality.  His self-reflection and critical thought to the past can be observed through the flashbacks, and the impact of these memories on Sergio's self-delusion and immobility draws the attention significantly to his bourgeois background and unfolds his intellectual sensitivity to his subjective vision of the historical moments which put him in the state of the antihero.

Sergio's dissociation with the realm of the political structure in the metropolitan city, Havana, is represented in the subjective hand held camera, the jump cut and the fragmentation of the juxtaposed images and his stylistic portrayal of the middle-class character whose unanimated contact with the people of the small communities and the lower classes brings the viewer to sympathize and identify with him in terms of farcical and comic complexity with the characteristic form and the structure of the new social reality. As Alea mentioned in his conversation with Burton:

"In one sense Sergio represents the idea of what every man with that particular kind of[bourgeois] mentality would like to have been: rich, good-looking. intelligent, with access to the upper social strata \ and to beautiful women who are very willing to go to bed with him. That is to say people identify to a certain degree with him as a character. The film plays with this identification" (Burton, 119).

On the other hand, his look of distanciation with his family and friends who left the homeland after revolution is immediately reinforced by detachment to his wife and the best friend in the airport through the plate glass. His desire to overcome on the ambiguity of the feelings about the melodramatic past provokes him to participate mentally in the ideological struggle with his interests and personal possession on previous world. The contrast between his perplexed critical spirit and the claustrophobic world in which he lives exemplifies his incapability to make a decision to involve with the revolutionary movement. Though his character is not offensively or represented aggressively in terms of respecting to the principal values of the revolution forcing upon him, the audience is prohibited and rejected to self-identify with him, according to Alea in the same conversation with Burton:

"But then what happens? As the film progresses, one begins to perceive not only the vision that Sergio has of himself but also the vision that reality gives to us, the people who made the film. They correspond to our vision of reality and also to our critical view of the protagonist. Little by little, the character begins to destroy himself precisely because reality begins to overwhelm him, for he is unable to act. At the end of the film, the protagonist ends up like a cockroach squashed by his fear, by his impotence, by everything" (Burton, 119).

Indeed, Sergio's narcissistic character is completely uninterested, and his moral faithfulness to the bourgeois values which implies on his apolitical personality represents him as the prisoner of his social status of the middle class. His sexual and romantic relationship with Elena (Daisy Granados) and his interest to educate her interfere with her social class and concern with his domination of the masculine power over her femaleness. His power over Elena seems to be perfectly predicted as the patriarchal enforcement of a petit-bourgeois on controlling and shaping the structure of the social role and her historical relation with the revolutionary transformation of her conscience, and when he fails to objectify Elena and to influence on her, he begins to continue his objective reflection in terms of relationship between master and servant on his housemaid. It seems to be always difficult for Sergio to understand the impact of the revolutionary social density on the decayed values of the traditional colonialist expanded forces. His alienation with his motherland can be followed and represented on his self-identification with Hemingway who simultaneously represents the defeated colonialism. Sergio's solitude to avoid of facing with the new reality inevitably and symbolically reminds us Hemingway's suicidal commitment confront with the new society.

Not surprisingly, in order to satisfy his intellectual quest and privilege, Sergio takes Elena to the museum and Hemingway's place to mock her inability to realize the cultural higher values of European and American colonialists and to avoid of his confrontation with his inability to understand the revolutionary movement. It seems to be crucial for Alea to represent an individual who is only concerned with himself, and his thoughts and sexual quest in terms of the battle of the sexes enforce him to approach a kind of the characteristic life which can be portrayed fundamentally as an alienated outsider's. The film addressed the people who according to Fornet:

 "...have believed themselves to be the sole depository of the revolutionary legacy; those who know what the socialist morality is and who have institutionalized mediocrity and provincialism...They are those who tell us that people are not mature enough to know the truth...This film is also directed to them, and is also intended, among other things, to annoy them, to provoke them, to irritate them" (Fornet, 98).

Of course, this is always Alea's obsession to put the place of the old world in front of the new ones such as his film Los Doce Sillas (Twelve Chairs) (1962) which has comic narrative and is enriched with complex techniques as Desones states in his writing: "An example of social realism because it presents in a very direct way a critical moment for our society, a moment of transition when one can observe very clearly the fight between the old and the new" (Desones, 6).

The connection between society and the individual in Memorias del Subdesarrollo and the director's focus on the historical moments and political atmosphere acquired distinctive dynamic ideas of revolution eventually turn the camera on the question of liberation and Sergio's intellectual fragility and vulnerability with the new social order and collective consciousness. His pretensions and contradictions with Cuban society are examined and portrayed stylistically by the director to create a kind of intellectual snobbism which prohibits Sergio of breaking the social boundaries between him and Elena.The embodiment of revolutionary outcome can be put in question throughout Sergio's existential and philosophical stream of consciousness which is under influence of Cuban machismo and his intellectualism can be observed as the false not authentic representation of the character that undergoes the self-absorbing transformation. As Micheal Chanan noticed in his writings:

"Of all Cuban films of 1960s it is in certain ways the closest to the ethos of the metropolitan intellectual, a film that portrays the subjective condition of its central character, a kind of intellectual antihero in a state of paralyzed perceptiveness...Sergio is neither a revolutionary nor a counterrevolutionary. He would like to be a writer, which he perceives as a vocation outside the realms of the political imperative" (Chanan, 289).

Paul Schrader also considers Alea as the director whose insight into the Cuban revolution draws the attention to his interest to visualize the portray of the Revolution with its whole outcome: " The films of Cuban filmmaker Tomas Gutierrez Alea insight into gow the Cuban revolution that had inspired so many people all over the world had come to a crisis. His films always defined the limits of expression in revolutionary Cuba" (Schroeder, xii). Ina similar manner, according to Julia Levin: "Unlike any other Cuban filmmaker, Alea was able to retain a sophisticated balance between his dedication to the revolution and his critical judgment of it when its ideals had been betrayed" (Levin, Sense of Cinema).

For Alea the film raises the profound questions about the role of intellectuals with respect to the revolution as Elena indicates in his writing:

"What is the intellectual's role in society? What is their role with respect to politics? what is the function of art that purports to be subversive? such questions were to elicit diverse and contradictory answers but would henceforth make it impossible, for artist and intellectuals to act and to think without first taking a stand as to those dilemmas. Memorias del Subdesarrollo echoed such preoccupations through the figure of the average intellectuals, deprived of any outstanding qualities, who underwent an intellectual crisis in individual terms" (Elens, 105).

At the same time, Alea's obsession and enthusiastic desire to involve the audience with the daily reality go beyond the spectator's expectations, and take a kind of didactic and stylistic approach to educate his mind on the representation of the reality as Chijona states in his writing: "Equipping the spectator with critical insights into reality, to the extent that he ceases to be a spectator and feels moved to actively participate in the process of daily life. In other words[what is needed are] not only works which help to interpret the world, but which also help to transform it" (Chijona, 29).Alea, without referring to Italian Neorealist movement, historicizes the narrative in his film just like any other director in that period, and tried to represent a rhetorical and idelaogical figure of the revolution which demonstrates the ideology of renewal and rebuilding for the whole country as King observes in his wrritings: "The vast majority of Latin American films I have seen are about history or memory or both, using flashbacks, multiple time layers, historical reconstruction, historical documentary inserts and many other devices to historicize the narrative" (King, 115).

Finally, Alea in the closing section of the film shows Sergio's defenseless and anxious situation to prepare for Cuban missile crisis, and his self-paralysis ambiguously can be considered as his final suicidal resolution right between speeches on television by Kennedy and By Fidel. He who consumes gradually the remnants of his decayed middle class in his alienation with new social phenomena is captures accurately in the face of the threat of nuclear drama. The spectator leaves the auditorium while he still thinks about Sergio's future and destiny at the end of the film, and Alea's intention to support the idea of representing him in the claustrophobic and entrapped mise-en scene still raise the crucial question for the audience: Do the intellectuals and artists can perfectly detach themselves from their own social class and status and sacrifice their own life for sake of revolution? Alea's answer to the question is simple and easy to be realized: It depends on the intellectuals and their tendency to participate in new reality.

Burton J. Cinema and Social Change in Latin America: Conversations with Film-makers, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986.

Chanan, Micheal. Cuban Cinema, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Chijona,Gerardo. Gutierrez Alea: An Interview, Framework: Afilm Journal(Norwich, England) 10 (Spring 1979), 29, (Reprinted from Cine Cubano 93).

Desnoes, Edmundo. Habla un Director Revolution, La Habna, January 8, 1963.

Elena, Alberto. The Cinema of Latin America, London: Wallflower Press, 2003.

Fornet, Ambrosio. Tomas Gutierrrez Alea: Una Retrospective Critica, La Habana, Letras Cubanas,
1987.

Levin, Julia. Sense of Cinema: Tomas Gutierrez Alea, http//www.senseofcinema.com.

King, John. Mediating Two Worlds: Cinematic Encounters in the Americas, London: BFI, 1993.

Mertin, Micheal T. New Latin American Cinema, Detroit:Wane State University Press, 1997.

Schroeder, Paul A. Tomas Gutierrez Alea: Dialectics of a Filmmaker, Routledge, 2002.


By: Morad Sadeghi