{"id":364,"date":"2006-05-04T19:15:03","date_gmt":"2006-05-04T23:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/?p=364"},"modified":"2009-09-10T22:19:19","modified_gmt":"2009-09-11T02:19:19","slug":"the-lost-city-2006-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/?p=364","title":{"rendered":"The Lost City (2005) – Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Andy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andy Garcia is forced to leave lovely In\u00e9s Sastre after Castro takes power in “The Lost City”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Cuba Libre<\/span><\/em><\/h1>\n

[xrr rating=4\/5]<\/p>\n

The Lost City.\u00a0<\/em>Starring Andy Garcia, In\u00e9s Sastre, Tomas Milian, Nestor Carbonell, Enrique Murciano, Bill Murray, Richard Bradford, Jsu Garcia, Millie Perkins, Steven Bauer, Lorena Feij\u00f3o, Dustin Hoffman, and Juan Fern\u00e1ndez. Screenplay by G. Cabrera Infante. Directed by Andy Garcia. (Magnolia Pictures, 2005, Color, 143 minutes. MPAA Rating: R.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his feature-film directorial debut, Andy Garcia uses the screen as his canvas to paint a vibrant and wistful picture of a\u00a0Havana\u00a0he never really knew firsthand. In 1961, Garcia\u2019s parents fled the prison that\u00a0Cuba\u00a0had become under Fidel Castro. Alarmed at the sight of their five-year-old boy Andr\u00e9s marching in their front yard and singing the communist hymn\u00a0The Internationale<\/em>, they decided to leave\u00a0Cuba\u00a0to raise their family in\u00a0Miami Beach.<\/p>\n

The Lost City<\/em>\u00a0represents Garcia\u2019s quest of sixteen years to tell this epic story of a Cuban family\u2019s struggle to grapple with the turbulent events of the communist overthrow of strong-arm dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1958\u2014events that inevitably tear the family asunder. The film\u2019s dramatic, moving script is the final screenplay penned by the late, legendary Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante. An early supporter of the Castro revolution, Infante\u2019s gradual disillusionment with the communist dictator forced him to flee in 1966.<\/p>\n

The Lost City\u00a0<\/em>revolves around nightclub owner Fico Fellove (Garcia), who runs the El Tropico, the ritziest cabaret in downtown\u00a0Havana, and his two brothers, Ricardo (Enrique Murciano) and Luis (Nestor Carbonell). The movie opens with an elaborate dance scene onstage at the club, where Fico\u2019s extended family celebrates his parents\u2019 anniversary. But as soon as the camera lurks backstage, the audience discovers that all is not well in the family, nor in\u00a0Havana.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Fico\u2019s father, university professor Don Federico\u2014played with great intelligence\u00a0<\/strong>by Tomas Milian (one of many Cuban expatriates among the cast and crew)\u2014holds court in Fico\u2019s office, arguing for reasoned, democratic opposition to the brutal Batista regime. But overzealous son Ricardo predicts that a coming revolution will free the oppressed people of\u00a0Cuba. Heated discussion escalates into a violent confrontation between patriarch and prodigal son, and Fico and Luis have to forcibly restrain their brother. The rift within the family ominously symbolizes the divisions that have broken out in the Fellove\u2019s island paradise, once known as the \u201cPearl of the\u00a0Antilles.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the tragic saga that chronicles the Fellove family\u2019s dissolution, Fico loses both brothers: Luis is executed by secret police when caught as the ringleader of an assassination attempt on Batista, and Ricardo commits suicide after betraying his family to win favor with the communists. The meaning of the movie\u2019s title emerges as we see what has been lost; the film becomes an elegiac love letter to the graceful and glamorous world in which Fico moves, but which is now slipping through his fingers as the communists impose control over every aspect of Cuban society.<\/p>\n

Elaborate musical and dance sequences, featuring the impulsive Afro-Cuban rhythms that define Cuban music, set off the onscreen action. Rumba and mambo show-stoppers make\u00a0The Lost City<\/em>\u00a0the kind of fusion of\u00a0light entertainment and serious drama\u00a0that American movie studios have forgotten how to make. But what most grabbed me were the ballet scenes, featuring the lithe agility of dancer Lorena Feij\u00f3o, who in real life is principal ballerina for the San Francisco Ballet.<\/p>\n

This kind of filmmaking threw many critics for a loop. But for me,\u00a0The Lost City<\/em>\u00a0comes off more like a Bollywood extravaganza than does the mostly anemic \u201cserious\u201d fareHollywood\u00a0serves up these days. The most convincing scenes are in the love story between Fico and brother Luis\u2019s aggrieved widow, Aurora, played by the exquisite In\u00e9s Sastre. Emmanuel Kadosh\u2019s camera simply loves her serene, alluring beauty: as Fico falls for her, so do all the men in the audience.<\/p>\n

Most crucially, Infante and Garcia don\u2019t whitewash or gloss over the true history of Fidel Castro\u2019s tyrannical rise to power: he is shown for exactly the brutal dictator he was and is. One wouldn\u2019t think that actor Jsu Garcia\u2019s portrayal of Ernesto \u201cChe\u201d Guevara as a murderous goon\u2014rather than as the Martyred Saint of the People\u2014would be controversial almost forty years after his death, but it has caused\u00a0The Lost City<\/em>\u00a0to be banned in many Latin American countries.<\/p>\n

Although uneven in a couple of scenes, the film overall is gripping and beautifully made, full of forceful, evocative performances that would make any new director proud. In a memorable cameo, Dustin Hoffman nails gangster Meyer Lansky\u2019s quietly menacing demeanor. Fans of\u00a0The Incredibles\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>sultry \u201cMirage\u201d character will get a glimpse of actress Elizabeth Pe\u00f1a playing a communist bureaucrat who threatens to shut down Fico\u2019s nightclub, unless he removes the orchestra\u2019s saxophone (\u201can instrument of imperialist oppression\u201d). Bill Murray provides comic relief as \u201cthe Writer,\u201d an obvious stand-in for novelist Infante. Some of his jokes fall flat, but altogether he injects a sense of uneasiness that foreshadows the beginning of the end for Fico\u2019s fortunes.<\/p>\n

Emmanuel Kadosh\u2019s vibrant cinematography bathes the screen in rich hues reminiscent of Gordon Willis\u2019 Technicolor prints of\u00a0The Godfather, Part II\u00a0<\/em>(also filmed in the\u00a0Dominican Republic). Production designer Waldemar Kalinowski and art director Carlos Men\u00e9ndez re-create a rich, elegant\u00a0Havana, adding first-rate production values to this low-budgeted movie.<\/p>\n

Oddly,\u00a0The Lost City<\/em>\u00a0was panned by most critics in the\u00a0U.S., presumably for its length and uneven execution. However, after reading many of the reviews, I suspect more than just a little opposition to be rooted in politics rather than aesthetics. Typical of the reviews was Stephen Holden\u2019s in the\u00a0New York<\/em>Times<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The impoverished masses of Cubans who embraced Castro as a liberator appear only in grainy, black-and-white news clips, awkwardly shoehorned into the movie to fill in historical blanks, and in some buffoonish parodies of sour Communist apparatchiks barking orders once Mr. Castro takes over.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Almost fifty years after Castro seized power and turned\u00a0Cuba\u00a0into a death camp and a sewer, its suffering captives\u00a0still\u00a0<\/em>risk shark-infested waters and treacherous currents to reach the freedom of\u00a0America\u2019s shores. Yet to many American Baby Boomers, nostalgic over the red \u201cChe\u201d t-shirts of their pampered college years, the nightmare reality just ninety miles from American shores might as well be invisible.<\/p>\n

Earlier this summer, when the aging Castro went under the knife and, for the first time, temporarily relinquished power to his brother Raul, you\u00a0could\u00a0witness more accurately what\u00a0Cuba\u2019s muzzled masses probably felt: thousands of Cuban-Americans of all ages and incomes filled downtown\u00a0Miami, celebrating Fidel\u2019s impending demise, waving Cuban and American flags, literally dancing in the streets.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0The Lost City,\u00a0<\/em>this same spirit moves Fico Fellove, who chooses to live and work alone in poverty and freedom, as a dishwasher in New York City, rather than as a slave in the socialist \u201cparadise\u201d of Havana:<\/p>\n

\u00a0I can\u2019t go back. It\u2019s too dangerous\u2026for my\u00a0<\/em>soul.<\/em>\u00a0I have no money. But here, I feel as though I\u2019m worth more than I ever was.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Andy Garcia is forced to leave lovely In\u00e9s Sastre after Castro takes power in “The Lost City” Cuba Libre [xrr rating=4\/5] The Lost City.\u00a0Starring Andy Garcia, In\u00e9s Sastre, Tomas Milian, Nestor Carbonell, Enrique Murciano, Bill Murray, Richard Bradford, Jsu Garcia, Millie Perkins, Steven Bauer, Lorena Feij\u00f3o, Dustin Hoffman, and Juan Fern\u00e1ndez. Screenplay by G. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36,37,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dramas","category-epic-movies","category-independent-films","category-mreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}