Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40372 in VHS
• Released on: 2001-10-23
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 120 minutes

Amazon.com
For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story chronicles the life of a man torn between his home and his devotion to his music. In a Golden Globe-nominated performance, Andy Garcia portrays the gregarious, passionate, and obstinate Arturo Sandoval, the Grammy-winning Cuban trumpet player.

This HBO film shows how Sandoval's life in revolutionary Cuba is affected--beginning in the early 1970s--by his zeal for his music and by the limits placed on him by his homeland. Representing his torn loyalties are Dizzy Gillespie (the enigmatic jazz musician played by Charles S. Dutton) and Sandoval's wife, Marianela (played by the beautiful Mia Maestro). Gillespie embodies the freedom to follow one's dream, while Marianela represents family loyalty and the ideals of the Castro revolution. Yet, the same regime his wife embraces forces Arturo to play government-imposed music instead of the jazz that he loves. Sandoval travels the world, and while the Cuban government profits from his success, he is exposed to a freedom that eventually draws him to the difficult and life-changing decision he and his family feel compelled to make.

Against a backdrop of beautiful scenery and exceptional music, For Love or Country provides a harsh depiction of revolutionary Cuba, its outmoded lifestyle, and the restrictions placed on its people. --Mindy Ruehmann

Customer Reviews

deserves a wide audience
You wanna play the horn, right? You gotta play the game! -For Love or Country

If a character in the movie The Player were pitching For Love or Country, he would describe it thus : it's the Sound of Music, but set in Cuba. Indeed, this gross oversimplification manages to capture some important aspects of the film. Arturo Sandoval, like the von Trapps, is a real life musician--a renowned jazz trumpeter--who fled a repressive regime and whose flight was complicated by concerns for family. But the differences are also important, and they serve to give this picture a depth and resonance that make it wholly worthwhile in its own right.

First, where the Nazis are so notorious as to immediately invoke our sympathy for the von Trapps, there has been a disturbing tendency in America to glamorize Fidel Castro and to minimize the crimes of his regime, right from the very beginning of the Revolution and the absurdly favorable profiles that the New York Times published in the late 50s. In a grotesque irony, this film was actually made during the whole Elian Gonzalez mess, when a significant portion of the American public, and a majority of the intellectual class, argued that a young boy, whose mother died trying to get him to freedom, should be returned to live in Castro's dictatorship. One of the fascinations of For Love or Country is that it gives us a rare glimpse into the lives of regular Cuban citizens and shows the spirit crushing effects of Communism on their lives. And it powerfully demonstrates the illegitimacy of a political system which is so bent on controlling the minds of its citizenry that even certain rebellious forms of music are outlawed. In one of the best scenes, Sandoval's wife, Marianela, asks an official for permission for her husband to play straightforward jazz, rather than just the distinctively latin jazz that he has helped pioneer in the band Irakere. The Party leader ominously warns her not to say something she'll regret and admonishes her that the Revolution needs everyone's' support to survive. In turn, she asks :

If the Revolution can't withstand...a Cuban man playing the music he loves, why bother trying to save it ?

What lends this scene its particular power is that, where Arturo has always harbored doubts about the Revolution and has refused to join the Party, Marianela has been a firm defender and has acted as a brake on his desire to rebel and even to flee. This dynamic, of Arturo being forced to choose between his love for his wife and his yearning to be free to play his own music, gives the story its great drama. In general, the scenes showing how difficult a choice it is for people to defect, to love family, friends, and homeland behind, are genuinely affecting, and should serve as a tonic for anyone who questions the motivations and commitment of refugees who seek our shores.

Added to the strong political themes are a hopefully career reviving performance by Andy Garcia, once one of Hollywood's hottest young stars; a dynamic star turn by Charles S. Dutton as Dizzy Gillespie; and, of course, a terrific soundtrack. Unfortunately, this movie, though it won several awards, was only shown on cable, but now that it is available on a budget priced DVD, perhaps it will find the wider audience it so richly deserves. I hope so, though I tend to doubt it. But there is a consolation; at the end of the movie you somehow feel a little bit prouder to be an American, just knowing what the Sandovals went through to become Americans themselves.

GRADE : A

Emotional journey
Since I have been unable to locate an address in which to write Mr. Garcia to explain how this film touched me, I thought this might be the next best thing. As a "natural born" citizen of the United States, I often feel overwhelming guilt for the suffering of the people who live in countries ruled by dictatorships and tyranny, while I enjoy innumerable freedoms here. Mr. Garcia has brought us a film that inspires hope, courage of conviction, and raises our awareness of the suffering still going on in his birthplace without bringing the stinging guilt that such a movie usually instills in me. I cried, then paced my apartment, then searched the Web for hours trying to find a way to contact Mr. Garcia to tell him that his message is received and appreciated.
The story is so amazing, it is almost difficult to believe that Mr. Sandavol not only lived it, but managed to see his whole family emigrate to the U.S. Thank you, HBO and Mr. Garcia, for telling a story that deserved to be told.

Magnificent Movie!! But....
...being that it is ABOUT LIFE IN CUBA and the CUBAN STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM from a tiranical government.. who on EARTH forgot to add a spanish language track, and at the very least- a spanish subtitle feature- to the DVD?!?! Subtitled VHS? Boo..Hiss on HBO. Come now, do they honestly think there are no cuban-americans who might wish to view this great film in their native language? For example, our 70'yr old grandmother who experienced first hand, what viewers of this film only begin to understand. She is unable to enjoy this film about her home, because the spanish language track and subtitles were left off? Sad..

Otherwise, this movie is fantastic. Although, I am told on solid authority that Sandoval had life (while in Cuba) a whole lot better than a majority of Cuban's.. however, his struggle and fame helped to bring press and attention to the serious issues facing the Cuban People.