Songs for an Open Road: Humberto Solás's Miel para Oshún and Barrio Cuba—A Legacy Lives On

Abstract

The telling of individual story and individual experience cannot but ultimately involve whole laborious telling of collectivity itself.-Fredric Jameson, The Political UnconsciousIn his book Screening Cuba, Hector Amaya recalls a day to be remembered in 1972, when first Festival of Cuban Film in United States was being celebrated:According to film critic of New York Times, the Festival promised to be 'the most important film retrospective of year'. Instead, it became stage for deeply anti-Cuban sentiments by social, political, and governmental forces. The Cuban filmmakers were denied visas; Olympia Theatre was stoned and threatened with bombs; and during exhibit of first and only film that was eventually shown (Lucia by Humberto Solas), anti-Castro agents released white mice, interrupting event and marking it with a sense of mockery. The next day, newspapers mentioned disturbances caused by mice but failed to mention that ambassadors from twenty-two nations attended festival.1What was extraordinary about this evening in Olympia Theatre was fact that despite their animosities, Cuba and United States met face on, and as Amaya points out, event would show how citizens (involved in cultural activities) in both nations attempted, and often succeeded, at establishing cultural links, even if this required defying their own governments.2 In effect, that evening estranged citizens from twenty-two nations and opposing national arenas decided to communicate with each other through a cultural exchange, and it is most revealing that chosen venue was film, and that chosen film was by Humberto Solas.3Throughout his long and rich film career, Solas (1941-2008) became a key figure in building of bridges with his art, opening paths with which to connect both his fellow nationals as well as his isolated island-nation to United States and to rest of world, enriching us all with his effort. It is not coincidental that road, in fact, became a strong trope in his two last films, Miel para Oshun (Honey for Oshun, 2001) and Barrio Cuba (2005). While there was some risk in using what some might believe to be a facile popular trope largely associated with Hollywood convention, Solas embraced chance it offered to communicate across borders and across generations. By doing so he continued to be as inspiring in new millennium as he was in 1968, with Lucia. There is little doubt that Solas was very face of Cuban cinema for film fans across world for close to five decades; he also laid much of groundwork for new Cuban cineastes to come.Undoubtedly, Cuba's revolution marked island as a haven for some, a pariah for others. The island has gone through turning points that would break most nations, but Cubans have survived most of 'mice' thrown at their feet, riding out such things as embargo, wars abroad and invasions on shore, Cold War, exiles en masse, arrival of Russians, exodus of Russians, and severe economic depression during 1990s, just to name a few. Solas may be viewed as a figure whose work has shaped many of new political and cultural bridges that became evident in past decade in Cuban-American relations.Solas was a powerful voice in his own generation, and an inspiration for a new generation of Cubans. The stories that he chose to tell indicate that he was a filmmaker who had goal of spawning a new national consciousness with new millennium exigencies, communication, adaptation, tolerance, peace and goodwill. To overcome regionalism and insularity, his films dared to renew a call for Pan-Americanism, largely postulated by Jose Marti . . . an early postcolonial model based on equality, at once envisioning heterogeneous components coalescing for a mutually beneficial existence.4 He knew that film art is a powerful artefact in our time. …