Film Review
Plantadas – A Fantastical Film of Anti-Cuban Hate
On September 22, the "Organizations in Canada of Cubans for Democracy" organized a showing of the film Plantadas
at the University of Ottawa. Sponsored by 32 organizations and
individuals, approximately 40 people attended, including the director
Lilo Vilaplana and staff from the
embassies of Czechia and Poland. Before the film, the organizers played
Cuban music and people from various regions of the country danced at the
front of the room, which was then followed by a typical anti-communist
speech about "human rights in Cuba."
The film itself is an out-and-out counterrevolutionary and hateful anti-Cuban display, with the aim of spreading disinformation to foment counter-revolution within Cuba and egg on anti-communists in exile to act against the revolutionary government. It is therefore no surprise that it opens with "created with the support of politicians, organizations and institutions in exile." Throughout, it portrays the Cuban revolutionaries as psychopaths, rapists, sadists, murderers and violent abusers towards women. About 75 per cent of the screen time is only these violent tortuous scenes – undoubtedly intending to portray communism itself as evil and barbaric. And to boot, the story is filled with traitors, liars and backstabbers, in an attempt to prove that human beings are inherently deceitful and you cannot trust one another, especially communists or anyone associated with the Cuban government. This incredible slander is ironic given that this type of factional betrayal is precisely the method of anti-communists worldwide.
In specific, the plot centres on three women -- America, Alina and Luisa -- who originally supported the revolution but begin to oppose it after coming to see the revolutionary leaders as evil despots. One by one, they are hunted down and kidnapped for their oppositional political views, or sometimes their Catholic faith (it is not overtly religious, though there are allusions throughout), or even sometimes familial associations. These women and their men live in opulent homes, with the lives of the masses of people omitted. One specific example of the women being taken away reveals the aim of the film – as they are loaded into trucks under the guise of being "prostitutes," one of the women lurches forward into a crowd, screaming that she is a "political prisoner." The crowd is portrayed as supporting and sympathetic, attempting to prove that the revolution was not a product of the masses, but that it was imposed on them by evildoers. The message, both to Cubans living at home and in exile, is to realize the brutality of the Cuban government and act against it – modelled after the heroes in the movie.
The
women are then raped by guards, sent into the filthiest prison cells
and allowed no rights whatsoever. They are then tortured over and over
again. The story of America reveals that after her cellmate is
arbitrarily executed, and as she subsequently screams "murderers" at the
guards
repeatedly, the guards resort to "torture" by blasting The Internationale
into her cell. Screaming and crying, America's ears begin to bleed and
she resolves to plug them, as if the song of the international working
class causes one physical pain. Other "political prisoners" are forced
into
cells with mainly black lesbian prisoners who then rape and sexually
assault the women, portraying black people and lesbians as inherently
aggressive in nature. Women in menstruation are denied access to health
care and told to "use your fingers or the stuffing in the mattress."
This serves to
depict a fiction where the Cuban revolutionary movement was and is an
affront to women's rights, using the prisoners' identities as women to
portray Cuba as a violator of human rights in general. What is
especially ironic is that Angel Santiesteban Prats, one of the film's
screenwriters, was
sentenced by a Cuban court in 2012 to five years in prison on a count of
physically assaulting his wife.
If the countless instances of assault towards women were not enough, their lovers and relatives are also beaten, brutalized, jailed and murdered in cold blood without trial. The main betrayal, of many which occur throughout, is when one of Alina's two lovers is kidnapped by her other lover who is secretly working for the revolutionary government and infiltrating the counterrevolutionary movement. He is then tortured, beaten and released on petition of the Organization of American States, only to be jailed again.
Nor is the film free of racist undertones, for in addition to portraying female black prisoners as aggressive rapists towards the "innocent white women," the only black people it shows on the side of either conflict are on the side of "evil," communism and Cuba.
Besides the odious content, the form of the film is also unwatchable. The movie's plot is only believable for the most naive anti-communist because nowhere is it consistent, and nowhere does it even define what these women are fighting for, what "the movement" (as they constantly refer to it as) is. There is no backstory or any sort of context. It is merely to showcase the evil and crimes of communism. The brutal scenes of torture are so extensive that no sensible or humane person could enjoy the film. The only people who could possibly derive enjoyment from it are those who enjoy seeing communism and Cuba depicted as such.
The entire film hinges on portraying communism, communists and the Cuban revolutionaries not as only people with bad ideas, but in fact sadists who have no ideas and whose only happiness comes from the pain and suffering of others. This, the movie's writers claim, is "inspired by true events." It associates communism and Cuba with everything evil and criminal against humanity.
Canadians and Quebeckers, who have a long history of friendship with revolutionary Cuba, know Cuba for what it is and how it consistently stands -- a country whose people are heroically fighting an all-sided imperialist blockade, a country whose advances in women's emancipation are historic, a country which does not eat with golden spoons but has everything they create through their own toil, a country which consistently sides with the peoples around the world in their strivings for peace, freedom and democracy. No fantastical fiction, no matter how vile it may portray Cuba, can erase these facts.
This article was published in
Volume 53 Number 10 - October, 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/MS531010.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca