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Reviews
Cuba and the Cameraman (2017)
The people in this doc will continue to stay with you long after
I can't recommend this enough.
You don't just get a passing glimpse of life in Cuba, instead you grow really close to the people the documentary follows over the decades. Their lives are raw but bursting with the will to live and the love for their families. There's the humour laced with despair, the sober realism, and always the joyful laughter in the face of it all. You see them grow, age, suffer and endure, become ill, break free, start a new chapter, die, and it feels like it's your family. I hadn't expected this doc to give me such intimate insights.
It also shows the very bleak political and economic situation after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Cubans being disillusioned with ideology. Then there are the staunch loyalists who publicly shame the growing stream of people fleeing into exile. In one scene, some Cuban Americans return to visit after many years away - their joy of reuniting with relatives and the way they instantly feel home again is heartwarming.
Fidel Castro's presence is colossal. The filmmaker struck up a connection with him that somehow endured over 40 years through a handful of encounters. In one scene, they meet at a press conference after many years and you see Fidel slowly recognizing him and then the genuine warmth spreading over his face. You get some rare glimpses into the humanity of this complex and legendary political figure.
Freud (2020)
A dance with the human shadow side
This is an absorbing, occult murder mystery that progressively reveals the political plot it is part of. The setting is after the Austro-Hungarian war and we are shown the arrogance and crudeness of the empire's political elite.
Freud's story, although largely fictional, is told in a warm and humane manner - he's brilliant but also caring, and a maverick who is ridiculed by his peers. Because of some bizarre murders happening, he bands together with some unusual characters who he would probably not have gotten to know under other circumstances. Most of the key characters come across as raw and authentic: we have the hard-as-nails inspector suffering from PTSD, his loyal right hand whose true passion is performing as a singer, and Freud's house-keeper who is assisting him in his shams and tricks when she's not telling him off for being disorderly in some way.
There were some weaknesses to the storyline, too. It had too many moving pieces and it sometimes was clumsy in how it brought these together - for example, in one of the later episodes, we suddenly find out the flat next to Freud has been haunted all this time and that there is a connection with the murders. There are also some inconsistencies, like the military officer who is secretly courting a girl from a more modest background while also secretly living with his gay lover. Or Freud being sceptical of Fleur's visions at first but still tipping off the police about them anonymously.
Despite all of this, I still loved the journey down into the dark part of the unconscious with this spiralling, gothic story.