The film Azucar Amarga opens with protagonist, Gustavo, looking at himself in the mirror. A photograph of Fidel Castro wedged behind the mirror makes up half of Gustavo’s face, being one of the director’s first clues to Gustavo’s love for Castro and communist Cuba. Gustavo is Cuba’s ideal “new man”; a term coined by the famous Che Guevara to describe a “selfless and cooperative, obedient and hardworking, gender-blind, incorruptible, non-materialistic, and anti-imperialist”[1] man. Gustavo truly believes in the revolution; he studies hard in hopes for a scholarship to study aeronautical engineering in Prague, he tries to convince his father to continue being a state employed psychiatrist instead of beginning a new job in the tourist industry,
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This film seemed to cover many of the issues that Cubans experienced in the late 80’s to the early 90’s. In fact, everyone in the film is shown to be let down and/or held back by the Cuban communist government in some form. Gustavo wins a scholarship to study aeronautical engineering at the University of Prague. He is very excited for the new prospect and is quite persistent about going but later in the story discovers that there was never any scholarship. False hopes, like Gustavo’s scholarship, have been common in Cuban since the fall off the Soviet Union because Cuba wants to show the world that Cuba is still functioning with the communist government in …show more content…
After not being able to express himself through his rock music, he goes out on the streets to protest but is soon arrested and abused in jail. In protest, as soon as he gets out, Bobby injects himself with HIV contained blood to commit a slow suicide. This only brings more problems: Bobby and his friends are taken to a sanatoria, a quarantined treatment center for those infected with HIV/AIDS, against their will in the middle of the night. Bobby spends the rest of his days in the sanatoria “…watching his friends die”. From 1986 to 1993, HIV-positive Cubans were forced to go to the sanatorias; a policy criticized by health and human rights experts and officials outside of Cuba.
Another interesting part of the film is the “communist cake” that was made for Gustavo to celebrate his scholarship. Each part of the cake, like the flour, milk, and eggs, had to be bartered for. It seemed as though it took 10 people to make the cake, which may have been poisonous anyway due to rotten
This film seemed to cover many of the issues that Cubans experienced in the late 80’s to the early 90’s. In fact, everyone in the film is shown to be let down and/or held back by the Cuban communist government in some form. Gustavo wins a scholarship to study aeronautical engineering at the University of Prague. He is very excited for the new prospect and is quite persistent about going but later in the story discovers that there was never any scholarship. False hopes, like Gustavo’s scholarship, have been common in Cuban since the fall off the Soviet Union because Cuba wants to show the world that Cuba is still functioning with the communist government in …show more content…
After not being able to express himself through his rock music, he goes out on the streets to protest but is soon arrested and abused in jail. In protest, as soon as he gets out, Bobby injects himself with HIV contained blood to commit a slow suicide. This only brings more problems: Bobby and his friends are taken to a sanatoria, a quarantined treatment center for those infected with HIV/AIDS, against their will in the middle of the night. Bobby spends the rest of his days in the sanatoria “…watching his friends die”. From 1986 to 1993, HIV-positive Cubans were forced to go to the sanatorias; a policy criticized by health and human rights experts and officials outside of Cuba.
Another interesting part of the film is the “communist cake” that was made for Gustavo to celebrate his scholarship. Each part of the cake, like the flour, milk, and eggs, had to be bartered for. It seemed as though it took 10 people to make the cake, which may have been poisonous anyway due to rotten