Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

262 reframing latin america
Once we are introduced to the protagonists in the fi lm (René and María),
we notice an intention to portray, once again, a distinct reality operating
just beneath a seemingly joyous surface. René strolls the streets, singing as
he delivers his goods. María accompanies him. Dressed in a virginal white
scarf tied around her head, she represents an ideal image of innocence and
prudence. But when René tells her that he wants to marry her in the gleaming
white cathedral that looms over them, and that María will wear a white
dress, she looks away dejectedly. René interprets her reaction as in keeping
with the innocent impression she gives and says, “You’ve never kissed anyone
before, have you?” This is the fi rst indication we have of some forthcoming
trouble in paradise.
A theme that will repeatedly play itself out through the rest of the fi lm
concerns the ways North Americans treat Cuba as their own private paradise,
but in doing so create a living nightmare for the Cuban people. When
his friends pretend to buy fruit from him, René reaches just below the surface
of his basket to reveal papers which he passes to them and which we
can assume are plans regarding the revolution. René and María are Afro-
Cubans, but these friends look European. Their lighter skin, as well as their
dress, suggest they belong to a higher rung of Cuban society. Details like
these underscore the ideals of the revolution—the leveling of hierarchy and
the pursuit of equal opportunity for all regardless of class or race—a discourse
that graphically demonstrates blacks and whites, the poor and the
middle class banding together to effect change. María, however, becomes
immediately marginal to this revolutionary endeavor for stating her fear
of the dealings that take place between René and his accomplices, and this
provides an initial glimpse of the patriarchal discourse that we will see confi
rmed in the fi lm’s conclusion.
This scene concludes as René, whose cart is notably inscribed “Angel,”
professes his love for María by offering her a symbolic tangerine: “Te quiero
María . . . María. . . .” he says. María walks away and out of the frame, and
the fi lm cuts to a nightclub decorated with bamboo poles hanging from the
ceiling. María exchanges her virginal scarf for a tight dress and a large crucifi
x necklace, and René’s voice from the last frame still echoes offscreen,
calling her name. With this juxtaposition we leave the serene streets of Havana,
where René and María are each hiding information from each other,
to enter the claustrophobic, labyrinthine, and soon-to-be frenetic space of
the nightclub. Close-ups of an Afro-Cuban singer passionately yet sorrowfully
belting out “Loco Amor,” (“Crazy Love”) while becoming obscured by
and entangled in a maze of hanging bamboo poles, again underscore a sense
of imprisonment and labyrinth. Given that all of the women to whom he