Subject: High School History, Spanish

Duration: 3 classes

Goal: To explore life in post-revolutionary Cuba through the film Guantanamera.

Objective: To critique the film Guantanamera.

Activities:
Day One
1. Open the class by facilitating a discussion about revolutions. In pairs, students answer the following questions:

-What are some examples of revolutions?
-Are revolutions necessarily "political?" Can they be social, cultural, etc?
-Are revolutions necessarily violent? Can there be a bloodless revolution?
-Can there be a revolution in a democratic society?
-Does US culture overuse/misuse the term today? For example, advertisements that declare: "A revolution in tooth brushing technology!" Do US citizens have any idea about revolution and what it really means?

2. Students report their answers to the class.

Day Two
1. To introduce the Cuban revolution, using library and internet resources, in small groups, students answer the following questions:

-What did the leaders of the Cuban revolution hope to accomplish and why? How did they go about causing revolution?
-What type of society did they establish? What was and is life like under Socialist Cuban rule?
-What are the current economic realities in Cuba?
-How has the revolution impacted women’s roles in Cuba?

Day Three
1. Students briefly report their findings to the class and the teacher fills in any missing information about the Cuban revolution and life in Cuba today. A good background resource on the Cuban revolution is chapter 8 of T. Skidmore and P. Smith, Modern Latin America 5th Edition, (Oxford University Press, 2000).

Day Four
1. View Guantanamera (1995). Present the following information before viewing the film:

Guantanamera was the final film by Tomas Gutiérrez-Alea, who many consider to be Cuba’s greatest director: The film won "Special Recognition in Latin-American Cinema" at the Sundance Film Festival. It tells the story of Aunt Yoyita (Conchita Brando), who returns to her childhood home at Guantanamo to visit her niece Georgina (Mirta Ibarra), a retired economics professor. There she encounters her old sweetheart Candido (Raul Eguren), and finds that they still love each other after all these years. Unfortunately, the intensity of her love is too much, and she dies in his arms. The bulk of the movie centers around bringing Aunt Yoyita’s body back to Havana for burial. This would seem a relatively simple task, except that Georgina is married to Adolfo (Carlos Cruz), a bureaucrat in charge of funerary arrangements in Guantanamo. He has devised a plan whereby, in order to more evenly distribute the gas costs across the island, bodies are transferred to another vehicle at the boarder of each province. During this long and unnecessarily arduous trip, Georgina runs into Mariano (Jorge Perugorria), an old student of hers. Through this chance meeting and other twists in this macabre journey, Gutiérrez-Alea explores the nature of love, life and death, and pokes fun at Cuba’s bureaucracy and economy.

Days Four-Six:
1. Open a discussion of the film with the following question: Is Guantanamera a revolutionary film or is it critical of the revolution?

2. Introduce the term, "dialectic." See "Viewers Dialectic" by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea for more information. Then, read the following quote from Gutiérrez:

" The Viewer’s Dialectic" Gutiérrez urges us to: "understand what cinema’s social function should be in Cuba in these times: It should contribute in the most effective way possible to elevating viewer’s revolutionary consciousness and to arming them for the ideological struggle which they have to wage against all kinds of reactionary tendencies and it should also contribute to their enjoyment of life…." (Martin, 110)

3. In seven separate groups, students work together to answer one of the following questions and then present their findings to the class:

-How well does Gutiérrez’ film conform to these revolutionary expectations?
-Does it elevate one’s revolutionary consciousness? Arm them for ideological struggle? Contribute to the enjoyment of life?
-Why is documentary film the predominant mode of cinema chosen by Cuban directors immediately following the revolution?
-Guantanamera is not a documentary. Does that indicate that Gutiérrez felt the revolution had failed? Has he sold out to capitalist/Hollywood modes of cinema? Is Guantanamera a Hollywood-style film?
-Guantanamera is critical of Cuban politics, economy, and gender roles, to name a few objects of criticism. Does this indicate that Cuban censors are more apt to allow gentle critique as of late? Is this a sign of its revolutionary nature?
-Gutiérrez argues that if a film doesn’t need to be a documentary to be revolutionary. Does this film reveal deeper, more essential layers of reality, what he calls "genuine reality?"

Assessment:
Write an essay using the following question as a thesis statement: The film Guantanamera is/is not a "revolutionary" film because… Be sure to incorporate Gutiérrez’ definition ("…a cinema which would be genuinely and integrally revolutionary, active, mobilizing, stimulating, and—consequently—popular." Martin, 110)

Materials: (available at the PIER Resource Center)
Guantanamera (1994) film
Martin, New Latin American Cinema (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997).
T. Skidmore and P. Smith, Modern Latin America 5th Edition, (Oxford University Press, 2000).