Let the stones speak. Havana’s urban ruins in the eyes of Cuban visual artists and filmmakers

Olga María Rodríguez Bolufé,Yalicel Gabeira Londres

doi:10.37390/avancacinema.2021.a229

Abstract

Since the 1990s we have identified in the Cuban cultural context a series of literary, visual and artistic practices that take Havana and its ruins as a place not only of representation but also of excavation. This concept, taken from Walter Benjamin’s thinking in relation to memory, in which the notion is understood “not as an instrument for knowing the past, but only as its medium”, allows us to enter into the sensibility of proposals such as Fresa y Chocolate by Cuban director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Suite Habana (2003) by Fernando Pérez, among others. The social and anthropological interest of these works expands into an intimate account of the city that is narrated from the human. As an allegory to those multiple layers of time that inhabit the spaces. The archaeological intention, present in some of these works through an interest for reading the traces in the walls and vestiges of the city, favors the idea of a landscape in ruins that can be narrated from the daily experience of its inhabitants. At the same time, the visual arts experience the need to explore in the ruins as a symbolic reference that enhances the meaning of anachronism to generate bridges of reflection between past and present. The interaction of glances between filmmakers and plastic artists around this universe of images will be the subject of analysis in this proposal.

Highlights

Since the 1990s we have identified in the Cuban cultural context a series of literary, visual and artistic practices that take Havana and its ruins as a place of representation and of excavation
This concept, taken from Walter Benjamin’s thinking in relation to memory, in which the notion is understood “not as an instrument for knowing the past, but only as its medium”, allows us to enter into the sensibility of proposals such as Fresa y Chocolate by Cuban director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Suite Habana (2003) by Fernando Pérez, among others
The social and anthropological interest of these works expands into an intimate account of the city that is narrated from the human

Summary

Saboreando las ruinas de La Habana con Fresa y Chocolate

Este clásico del cine cubano resulta un exponente fundamental cuando de ruinas se habla. La casa que otrora fue una hermosa y lujosa construcción, ahora está en ruinas, como el país, como las calles, como muchas de las utopías, como esos sistemas de valores fallidos y desiguales que afectan a los personajes de esta entrañable película cubana. Suite Habana, del director cubano Fernando Pérez, constituye un ensayo visual que podría entenderse como un grito, escuchado en un filme donde no hay diálogos. A pesar de que la película no se construya a través del diálogo son muchas las palabras que surgen en el vínculo entre los habitantes y la ciudad, lo que tributa a un resultado visual entre el documental y la ficción. Ante estas circunstancias el filme parece preguntarse por ¿Cómo construir las capas de una ciudad a través de las formas de vida y experiencias de sus habitantes? Para configurar un documento visual que condensa: dolor, afectos y esperanzas

Ruinas y Dioses Rotos

Referencias bibliográficas finales

Textos en Línea