The Lost City
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Movie Reviews of The Lost City
Movie Review: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire
Summary: 5 Stars
The Lost City is not a great film. Still, it is a four and a half star production. The strength of Andy Garcia's story is how he successfully reveals the gullibility of the Cuba's affluent "useful idiots." Fico's family is caught right in the middle of this historic challenge to Cuba's political structure. Some of its members intelligently advocate evolution over revolution. Others, regrettably, believe in the violent overthrow of the government. Governments have come and gone throughout the island's history? Why should it be any different with Fidel Castro's guerrillas? Are they really something special? Cubans party and enjoy themselves oblivious to the doom soon awaiting them. In many respects, we are reminded of the frog who is unaware that he is being slowly boiled alive.
The Cuban people needed to remove dictator Fulgencio Batista from power. This is beyond dispute. But how was this goal to be accomplished? At what cost? Who would replace him? Is there a chance the nation could be jumping out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire? Such questions cannot be ignored by mature adults. Alas, Cuba's pseudo educated childlike creatures preferred to live in an imaginary world of make believe. Castro did not have the slightest interest in promoting democratic values. He is, first, last, and foremost, a Marxist thug. And make no mistake about it. This was abundantly clear for anyone who possessed a lick of sense and a historical perspective. "In 1958 Cuba had a higher per-capita income than Austria and Japan. Cuban industrial workers had the 8th highest wages in the world," says writer Humberto Fontova. Today, Cuba is an economic basket case. This never had to happen.
David Thomson
Flares into Darkness
Movie Review: Revolution Happens. No complaints. Great movie. The End.
Summary: 5 Stars
Many reviewers here seem to want to debate the historical, political or moral accuracy, truth or correctness of The Lost City.
Give it a rest, and appreciate this movie for what it really is.
Hey, revolution happens. It always has causes and effects.
The Lost City is art. High art at that.
It appears to me that Garcia did as good a job as humanly possible in balancing his persepctive from the pre-Revolutionary upper and upper middle class with those of the bureaucatic and military ruling class, the working classes, and the revolutionary forces. This was not a documentary. It would have been impossible to tell everyone's truth.
Garcia succeeded mightily in crafting a love letter to a place, a time, a history, a culture, and a future, that means much to many, and in doing so helping to illuminate and preserve that culture and awareness for us all.
Garcia's characters in the movie on the political right, center and left display the full spectrum of human conditions, motivations, and emotions, both good and evil, and frequently flawed.
Critics of the movie on either its political or artistic merits are revealing more about themselves, their own agendas, or their appreciation for something other than Hollywood action blockbusters, than about the shortcomings of Garcia or this film.
The Lost City is a story worth telling told well, a beautiful film, full of talented actors and performances, with lush visuals and music. The setting here is Havana, but it could have taken place anywhere, and this would have been a well made and moving film. It is therefore timeless and qualifies as classic art. No complaints. The End.
Movie Review: Good and Fair Historical View of Events in Cuba
Summary: 5 Stars
Andy Garcia has done an excellent job in portraying Cuba in the last year before Castro took over and the aftermath. As a previous reviewer stated, the film does justice to the frailties of the Batista regime as well as the nightmare that began when Castro took over.
I was there when this took place and I can say that Andy Garcia did an outstanding job in the detail of the era. From the beauty and joy that Cuba was, to the slow disintegration through Castro, and finally to the hard conditions that Cuban immigrants had to live through as they exited Cuba and started a new life in the United States.
It covers the pain that families went through as many had splits in political views that disintegrated many families to the inevitable separations in having to leave your home going to a foreign land where you did not even know the language.
I was there, as a 9 year old, in the airport saying goodbye to my father who I was never to see again, to seeing my mother working 2 and sometimes 3 jobs to make a living as a single mother. This movie brought many of these memories back.
This is a very fair movie to all that Cuba went through in that last year. For anyone who wants to see the real circumstances that brought a once beautiful country to abyss, free of any propaganda, I recommend this movie highly. Kudos to Andy Garcia for a fine production to a great film. I also recommend the soundtrack to the movie where you can hear all the music of a bygone era.
The Lost City
Movie Review: "Those who don't scrutinize and analyze the history, are condemned to repeat it" Jorge Santayana
Summary: 5 Stars
"Lost city" is a very impressive gaze around the decay of a city, the progressive brutalizing of desperate lot of people, blinded by the rise of a New Messiah who has emerged from Sierra Maestra to comfort, enlighten and guide them through new promises of hope and glory, after the opprobrious fall of Batista.
Andy Garcia has surprised us thanks to his dynamic use of the eye camera, scrutinizing from a respectable distance, without the well known abuse of the close up, reserving it only for the required sequences. It explores without merciless realism, the social corpus, the personal ambitions, and the implacable twist of fate experienced by two very close members of his family; his own brother and his brother in law - both dead - the crumbling of the familiar circle as allegorical metaphor about the distortion process experienced for mesmerized people who didn't perceive the abominable reality beneath the façade.
Supported by an admirable cast and numerous musical numbers - don't forget the enormous creativity of that land around the meaning of his songs - which is admirably remarked by a trumpet solo in the first shot of the film and then underlined in the last piece. Cuba Linda, siempre te recordaré: Beautiful Cuba, I will always remind you."
And please don't forget it: any resemblance with a emerging and beating reality is just a mere coincidence.
Movie Review: I RELIVED buried memories....
Summary: 5 Stars
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.