Product Description

THE CUBAN MASTERWORKS COLLECTION

Five Beautifully Restored Classic Films From Revolutionary Cuba

Now finally available in North America are five masterworks from revolutionary Cuba. Beautifully restored with newly created English subtitles and directed by three legendary filmmakers, each film is a worthy addition to the canon of great world cinema. Taken together these titles reveal a unique perspective on their country-- one that Americans are unaccustomed to seeing.

FIVE DVD BOX SET INCLUDES:

THE TWELVE CHAIRS (LAS DOCE SILLAS)

Directed by Thomás Gutiérrez Alea
This classic comedy, based on an old Russian tale and also made into a film by Mel Brooks, is set in the aftermath of Cuba's revolution, when property belonging to the rich is being nationalized. On her deathbed, a wealthy woman reveals to her son-in-law, Hippólito, that a fortune in jewels is hidden inside one of twelve identical chairs, taken by revolutionary authorities from her villa. Hippólito begins a comical hunt for the treasure, and he's not alone! From the director of Death of a Bureaucrat and the Oscar nominated Strawberry & Chocolate.

90 minutes, b&w, 1962

THE ADVENTURES OF JUAN QUIN QUIN (LAS AVENTURAS DE JUAN QUIN QUIN)

Directed by Julio García Espinosã
In this wildly anarchic comedy, Juan Quin Quin survives on his wits in pre-revolutionary Cuba as an altar boy, a circus performer, a bull-fighter, a coffee planter -- the poor but shrewd farmer even plays the part of Christ with a travelling theatre company. As the Revolution begins, a comic series of injustices leads Juan to the Sierra to become a guerrilla leader -- albeit a bungling one.

102 Minutes, b&w,1967

CECILIA

Directed by Humberto Solás
Cuba, 1830. The son of a rich colonial family falls in love with a poor mulatto girl in this sweeping, elegant, controversial, and exquisitely transgressive adaptation of Cirilo Villaverde's classic 19th-century abolitionist novel Cecilia Valdés.

127 minutes, color, 1981

{Official Selection -- Cannes Film Festival}
{Best Film, Best Actress -- Panama Int'l Film Festival}

AMADA

Directed by Humberto Solás
Havana, 1914. The turmoil of World War I engulfs a young middle-class housewife who falls in love with her cousin, an idealistic leftwing journalist. Will Amada leave her unfaithful husband and obsolete bourgeois values behind to follow her passion?

105 minutes, color, 1982

A SUCCESSFUL MAN (UN HOMBRE DE ÉXITO)

Directed by Humberto Solás
Chronicling 30 years of Cuban politics and history, this epic has been compared to Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and the grand cinema of Luchino Visconti. Solás follows the lives of two brothers separated by ideology and ambition, while whisking us through three decades of glitter, corruption and the decline of the middle-class ending with the Cuban revolution. With its themes of corruption vs. innocence, power vs. morality, and idealism vs. opportunism, A SUCCESSFUL MAN offers a complex look at the roots of the Cuban revolution.

103 minutes, color, 1986
{Winner! Grand Prize -- Havana Film Festival}

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48257 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-02-20
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Box set, Black & White, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: Spanish
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 5
• Running time: 529 minutes

Amazon.com
Once upon a time, Cuban cinema in America began with I Am Cuba and ended with Buena Vista Social Club. Though stunning, neither film was made by a native Cubano. Cuban Masterworks presents five indigenous works that deserve wider exposure. Based on the 1928 book by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's The Twelve Chairs (1962) plays like a cross between an Ealing comedy (dark, yet loopy) and early Godard (he incorporates animation, inter-titles, and a jaunty score). In the prologue, a wealthy aristocrat dies before she can reveal which of twelve parlor chairs conceals her jewels. Together, her son-in-law, Hipólito (Enrique Santiesteban), representing the old Cuba, and his nephew, Oscar (Reinaldo Miravalles), representing the new, set out to recover the nationalized loot. Mel Brooks remade the satire in 1970, while Alea went on to direct the Oscar-nominated Strawberry and Chocolate (1994). Also in black and white, Julio García Espinosa's rousing multi-genre piece The Adventures of Juan Quin Quin (1967) makes use of physical comedy, thought balloons, and other forms of "tomfoolery." Adapted from Samuel Feijóo's 1964 novel, the narrative revolves around the restless Juan (Júlio Martínez), bullfighter, circus performer, and revolutionary. The trusty Jachero (Erdwin Fernández) is Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote, Teresa (Adelaida Raymat) is his leading lady, and Der Feind (Enrique Santiesteban) is his shape-shifting nemesis.

The collection is completed by three from Humberto Solás. Cecilia (1981), inspired by Cirilo Villaverde's 1882 classic Cecilia Valdés, looks at race relations in the 1830s. Starring Daisy Granados (A Successful Man) as a woman of mixed race, the operatic tragedy was nominated for the Palme d'Or. Set in 1914, Amada (1982) takes Miguel de Carrión's La Esfinge as source material. Amada (Eslinda Nuñéz, Cecilia), a woman of privilege, longs for more than a loveless marriage. A Successful Man (1986) traces the paths of brothers Javier (Amada's César Évora), a playboy, and Darío (Jorge Trinchet), a communist, in the pre-revolutionary era. As impressive as these melodramas may be, the absence of Lucia (1968), the director’s masterpiece, is unfortunate. Of the extras, the highlight is The First Time (1967), which documents a rural community's introduction to the movies. Aside from The Twelve Chairs, the other four selections are exclusive to this long overdue introduction to Cuban cinema. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

Excellent intro to Cuban classics
My only complaint is that this otherwise excellent collection is not mastered anamorphically. This means that, if you own a wide screen TV, you will have to "zoom" the picture to fill the screen, affecting the quality.