The Lost City
by Andy Garcia
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Andy Garcia, Inés Sastre, Nestor Carbonell, Richard Bradford, Tomas MilianDirector: Andy Garcia
Brand: Magnolia Pictures
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 144 minutes
Published: 2006-08-01
DVD Release Date: 2006-08-08
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 10031
Studio: Magnolia
Product features:
- Andy Garcia stars and makes his directorial debut in a passionate and historical tribute to his native Cuba. Havana in 1958 is a place of pleasure for many, but others are not happy under the rule of dictator Fulgenico Batista. As the revolutionary forces of Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara prepare to move on the city, Fico Fellove (Garcia)-owner of the city'siest music nightclub, El Tropico
Movie Reviews of The Lost City
Movie Review: "Che" Guevara Killed In Cold Blood? Naw, Really?
Summary: 5 Stars
As I watched the movie, I was reminded of what old Uncle Joe, Joseph Stalin used to say about a variety of things - "Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." "Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?" "Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem." The Stalinist style of Ernesto "Che" Guevara de La Serna y Lynch finally comes through in a mainstream, albeit, independent english language film. And as I watched the accurate portrayal of this psychopath,I sought out words that would perhaps sooth me into believing as the majority apparently do out of ignorance or allegiance that "Che" was a humanitarian. Let us read:
"I'd like to confess, papa', at that moment I discovered that I really like killing." Letter from Ernesto Guevara to his father during a time after he delivered a point blank shot from his pistol to the temple of Eutimio Guerra, a rebel guerilla (not one of Batista's men mind you, one of his own) ordered executed by Fidel Castro in 1957.
- Marcos Bravo. La Otra Cara Del Che, Editorial Solar. Bogota, Colombia.
""Fusilamientos? Hemos fusilado, fusilamos e seguiremos fusilando mientras sea necesario. Nuestra lucha es una lucha a la muerte."
"Executions? Yes. We have executed. We execute and we will continue to execute while it remains necessary. Our struggle, is a struggle to the death. "
-Ernesto "Che" Guevara, United Nations General Assembly, December 11, 1964, audio recording
"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary," "These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the paredon (The Wall)!"
- Jose Vilasuso, Come Era El Che, Bayamon/edu, Puerto Rico, 1997
"Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!"
- Ernesto "Che Guevara", Diarios de motocicleta, (Auto-biography) also known as the "Motorcycle Diaries".
"Yet immediately after the Santa Clara bribe and skirmish, Che ordered 27 Batista soldiers executed as "war criminals." Dr. Serafin Ruiz was a Castro operative in Santa Clara at the time, but apparently an essentially decent one. "But Comandante" he responded to Che's order. "Our revolution promises not to execute without trials, without proof. How can we just....?"
"Look Serafin" Che snorted back. "If your bourgeois prejudices won't allow you to carry out my orders, fine. Go ahead and try them tomorrow morning -- but execute them NOW!".
-Enrique Ros, Che: Mito y Realidad. Ediciones Universal. Miami, 2002
It was during the last days of December 1959; in the dark, cold cell that 16 prisoners slept on the floor while the other 16 were standing so they could lay down, but nobody was thinking about that, our only thought was that we were alive and that was the important thing; we lived hour to hour, minute to minute, second to second without knowing what the next would bring.
It was about an hour before it would be time us to change shifts when the sound of the iron door opening was heard as they threw another person into the already crowded cell. For a moment in the darkness we couldn't tell that it was a boy some 12 to 14 years old at most who had just become our newest cellmate. And what did you do? We all asked almost in unison. With his bloody and beaten face he stared at us and responded "I defended my father so they wouldn't kill him, I couldn't stop it. Those sons of bitches murdered him."
We all looked at each other as if to find the right words to console the boy but we couldn't find them. We had enough of our own problems. It had been two or three days since they had executed anyone and each day we had more hope that this would all be over. The executions are unmerciful, they take life when you need it most for you and yours, without listening to your protests or yearnings for life.
Our happiness didn't last much longer, when the door opened they called out 10, among them the boy who had been the last one in. We had been wrong because those they called, we never again saw.
How could it be possible to take a child's life in this way? Could it be that we were wrong and that we were to be released? Near the wall where they conducted the executions, with his hands on his waist, paced from side to side the abominable Che Guevera.
He gave the order to bring the boy first and he ordered him to kneel in front of the wall. We all screamed for them not to commit this crime and we offered ourselves in his place. The boy disobeyed the order with a courage that words can't express and responded to this infamous character: "If you're going to kill me you're going to have to do it the way you kill a man, standing, not like a coward, kneeling.
Walking behind the boy, the Che said "whereupon you are a brave lad..." He unholstered his pistol and shot him in the nape of the neck so that he almost decapitated him.
We all shouted "assassins, miserable cowards" and so many other things. He turned around towards us and emptied the pistol's magazine. I do not know how many of us were killed or injured. From this horrible nightmare, from which never we managed to wake up, we realized that although wounded and in the student clinic of the Calixto Garcia hospital, one thing was clear, the only card we could play was to escape, it was our only hope of survival.
- Pierre San Martin, How Che Murdered, El Nuevo Herald December 28, 1997
"The house was among the most luxurious in Cuba," writes Cuban journalist Antonio Llano Montes. ''Until a few weeks prior, it had belonged to Cuba's most successful building contractor. The mansion had a boat dock, a huge swimming pool, seven bathrooms, a sauna, a massage salon and several television sets. One TV had been specially designed in the U.S. and had a screen ten feet wide and was operated by remote control (remember, this was 1959.) This was thought to be the only TV of its kind in Latin America. The mansion's garden had a veritable jungle of imported plants, a pool with waterfall, ponds filled with exotic tropical fish and several bird houses filled with parrots and other exotic birds. The habitation was something out of A Thousand and One Nights.
Llano Montes wrote the above in exile. In January 1959 he didn't go quite into such detail in his article which appeared in the Cuban magazine Carteles. He simply wrote that, "Comandante Che Guevara has fixed his residence in one of the most luxurious houses on Tarara beach."
Two days after his article ran, while lunching at Havana's El Carmelo restaurant, Llano Montes looked up from his plate to see three heavily armed Rebel army soldiers instructing him to accompany them. Shortly the journalist found himself in Che Guevara's La Cabana office, seated a few feet in front of the Comandante's desk which was piled with papers.
It took half an hour but Che finally made his grand entrance, "reeking horribly, as was his custom" recalls Llano Montes. "Without looking at me. He started grabbing papers on his desk and brusquely signing them with 'Che.' His assistant came in and Che spoke to him over his shoulder. "I'm signing these 26 executions so we can take care of this tonight.'
"Then he got up and walked out. Half an hour later he walks back in and starts signing more papers. Finished signing, he picks up a book and starts reading -- never once looking at me. Another half hour goes by and he finally puts the book down. 'So you're Llano Montes,' he finally sneers, 'who says I appropriated a luxurious house.'
"I simply wrote that you had moved into a luxurious house, which is the truth," replied Llano Montes.
"I know your tactics!" Che shot back. "You press people are injecting venom into your articles to damage the revolution. You're either with us or against us. We're not going to allow all the press foolishness that Batista allowed. I can have you executed this very night. How about that!"
"You'll need proof that I've broken some law" responded Montes.
"'We don't need proof. We manufacture the proof,' Che said while stroking his shoulder length hair, a habit of his. One of his prosecutors, a man nicknamed 'Puddle-of-blood' then walked in and started talking. 'Don't let the stupid jabbering of those defense lawyers delay the executions!' Che yelled at him. 'Threaten them with execution. Accuse them of being accomplices of the Batistianos.' Then Che jerked the handful of papers from Mr. Puddle and started signing them.
"This type of thing went on from noon until 6:30 PM when Che finally turned to his aides and said. 'Get this man out of here. I don't want him in my presence.'"
- Marcos Bravo. La Otra Cara Del Che, Editorial Solar. Bogota, Colombia.
"No dispare, No dispare! Yo soy el Che Guevara y valgo para usted mucho mas vivo que muerto"
"Don't shoot, don't shoot! I am Che Guevara and I am worth more to you alive than dead."
Ernesto "Che" Guevara, to his captors in Bolivia on October 9, 1967.
He was probably expecting them to dispense with the "archaic bourgeois detail" of judicial proof before killing him.
I highly recommend this movie to anyone interested in seeing a cleverly avoided and in many cases self admitted side of the "Che".
Summary of The Lost City
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