Four vignettes on the lives of pre-revolutionary era Cuban people; in Havana, Maria is ashamed when a man she loves discovers how she makes a living. Pedro, an old farmer, discovers that the land he cultivates is being sold to an American company. A student sees his friends attacked by the police while they distribute leaflets supporting Fidel Castro. Finally, a peasant family is threatened by Batista's army.
Cinematography
Those impossible one-take tracking shots are still unmatched sixty years later.
Direction
Kalatozov turned Soviet-funded agitprop into genuine visual transcendence.
Director
Mikhail Kalatozov
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The famous funeral procession tracking shot required building a custom rig that glided over buildings, through crowds, and into a cigar factory—practically inventing the Steadicam before it existed.
Cuban audiences initially rejected it as too Soviet; Soviet audiences found it too Cuban. It was largely forgotten until rediscovery by Scorsese and Coppola in the 1990s.
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