One of Alea’s most metaphorical passages occurs just seconds into ‘Memories of
Underdevelopment’ when, during a frenzied dance, the momentum of the dancing and
the music is uninterrupted by a gunshot that topples a participating dancer who is then
lifted out of the crowd, disappearing into the background. Alea, in a synthesis of images
meant to stand for both ongoing revolution and removal of individuality in a cultural
sense, defines the alienation effect in ‘Memories of Underdevelopment’. He also draws
from his ever present theme of individuality vs. society that is prevalent in both
‘Memories of Underdevelopment’ and ‘Strawberry and Chocolate’.

 In this image of the shot dancer, Alea critiques Cuban society in the same way
‘Memories of Underdevelopment’ as a whole does: he shows us a society obsessed with
the ongoing act of recreation, willing to sacrifice the stragglers to alienation, exile or
even death. In ‘Strawberry and Chocolate’, however, Alea gives us Diego: a human
paradox who believes fervently in the revolution but also strives to maintain his sense of
identity. At the end of the film, he is exiled to Mexico for, at the barest of levels, a nasty
letter, written in defiance to the Government regarding the matter of a cancelled art show
that was to have featured his sculptures.

 Alea clearly sees this particular criticism as necessary to his own process. He
wants to show the restrictions that can befall artists in a Socialist society and therefore,
demonstrate how the artist can be both a solitary entity (on his own) or a restricted
puppet (if he chooses to make his art public). Alea himself is funded by a government
that supports this particular statement (i.e. - ‘Strawberry & Chocolate) about censored
expression, which has presumably been amended since 1979, when ‘Strawberry and
Chocolate’ takes place. This is one of the few projected showers of praise Alea bestows
upon his homeland throughout the course of ‘Strawberry and Chocolate’. He is a living,
breathing example of the benefits that have been opened up since 1979, which is a point
he makes through the simple act of writing, directing and releasing the film. While
erecting a grim reminder of the effects of governmental control of the arts, he doesn’t
skimp on revealing the progression of the movement.

 The characters themselves, both Sergio (from ‘Memories of Underdevelopment’)
and Diego (from ‘Strawberry and Chocolate’), are criticisms in their own way. They are
figureheads of social analysis because they are the products of the Revolution.
 Sergio, unable to come to grips with his own feelings towards the new movement
that everyone around him has either embraced or denounced (including his own wife,
who has fled to the United States), becomes Alea’s prime caricature for the alienation
effect. Having lived through this time in Cuba, Alea is familiar with a great range of
upheavals in lifestyle - both positive and negative. The middleground, Alea argues, is
Segio, a man who chooses no sides. He continues his life in the manner we assume he as
always approached it: selfishly. It is entirely possible to postulate that Alea connects
indecision regarding the revolution to egocentrism. Sergio is a sexual predator, a dandy
and a wandering philosopher (as reasoned in his droll voice narration). Alea shows us
that the revolution is what you make of it. Having stayed on in Cuba and roused ICAIC,
the Cuban Institute of Film Art and Industry, Alea clearly believes in the power of the
movement. Alea made good use of the revolution by making a film about a man who
made nothing of the revolution: Sergio - ashamed by a statutory rape charge (which he
beats) -and locked into a meaningless and empty state of being (financially and
emotionally) that, as the film closes, is just beginning to work against him.

 Diego is a homosexual that hoards banned books and lures a young student into
his apartment with the promise of photos depicting the student in a play. Diego is seen as
a radical who still participates in his native Cuba’s social resuscitation. Even as he is first
introduced, he is a (purposefully) calculated contradiction: a native exiled within his own
society; an open minded artist with no real self control. The photos represent a search for
self that the student, David, is willing to take upon himself at the very moment when it is
presented to him. He is feeling rejected and reckless after Vivian, the woman he loved,
marries another man for security. David, a romantic trapped in a strange post-romanticist
limbo, is logical as he continues to visit Vivian in order to gain closure. A key element to
Alea’s argument is the inclusion of such a character - and such a need. In painting the
diametrically opposing Diego and David, he requires David to be smart and in tune with
the revolution’s effects on himself as well as society. All this is necessary to create an
“Alienation moment”; a moment when lovelorn depression overtakes the understanding
of self that David thought he possessed. David feels alienated, if only for a short time.

 When Diego, rather outwardly, invites David home on the pretense of the
photographs, David, in the midst of his “Alienation moment”, has very little to lose - that
he can think of. Actually, as a student on a government sponsored grant at a government
sponsored University, his interest in political science has had a reverse effect on him,
closing his mind to new things and, specifically, inspiring his homophobia. When
Diego’s miraculous timing catches David off guard and ready to, however unconsciously,
erase his ill-fated beliefs, Alea is presenting for our approval a character meant to stand
for the quintessential ignoramus.

 David is another reflection of how certain people interpret the revolution. He
embraces the government and his patriotic allegiance to Cuba, but, as he learns from
Diego, he is only supporting a reductive viewpoint that still limits the freedom of its
believers and followers. ‘Strawberry and Chocolate’ could pass as a work of propaganda
if it didn’t also teach Diego a lesson in understanding the collage of sources that are
crucial to interpreting the revolution and the restraint necessary to harness its effects in
artwork. This is illustrated in the “heroes” David puts up on Diego’s wall - particularly
Che Guevara. Alea spells out the need for a blend of both ideals (Diego loves Cuban
cultural appreciation but remarks that “there would be a piece missing without him
[Diego]”), with a tip of the scales towards Diego’s anti-oppression existence.
 Important in the respect that a culture is often defined by its artistic works and
expression, Alea creates a place for the artist in the forum of social criticism. Each
character is an artist in his own way. Sergio is a social artisan while Diego is a sculptor.
Alea gives both of them roles governed by their very purpose in their respective films.
 As a well-dressed, financially comfortable social butterfly, Sergio is given the
role of the modern man - a person who regularly fantasizes about his maid and women he
sees on the street, attends public debates and gatherings, and cares about his outward
appearance (his inward image is another story). As Alea’s poster boy for “The Alienation
effect”, Sergio the social artist has an even grander role in society. He is meant to stand
among Alea’s arguments as the fading human irony; the death of fashionable wealth
amidst a bleak Socialist foreshadowing. Alea alludes to future events using Sergio as a
warning device. The warning is that wealth inspires misappropriation (as Sergio’s
arrested indifference denotes) of the revolution and that for the revolution to be positive
and successful, the artist has to be more open and culturally aware like Diego in
‘Strawberry and Chocolate’.

 Diego’s role, as the artist practicing examination of his surroundings
(concentrated through David), is focused on the ability to appreciate and create art - even
if he is not completely welcomed in his society. Alea gives us a complete rounding of this
role - and does it intently - by inspiring Diego, the artist, to understand that he needs to
exercise restraint in all endeavors. He makes Diego a flawed and passionate - if
occasionally eccentric (he talks to his refrigerator as if it were an object of worship) -
member of society. He also makes him a homosexual, which is usually read in most
societies as “outcast”. By testing Diego (who remains indoors most of his life for
protection) with David’s presence - which will require restraint and patience - Alea
recreates Diego just as Cuban society is recreating itself: by flushing out his first order
desire (to make David his lover) for the betterment of himself as a whole. To him, as
he’ll learn, David is of more use as his own heterosexual entity - learning also to suppress
his first order desire (which is to betray Diego) for the betterment of himself. Alea is
allegorically reflecting the revolution and how to best render it for the betterment of the
whole society as well as the individual. To do this, he needs an artist like Diego whose
role must blend the willingness to share the creative power of his craft and willingness to
absorb the discipline fundamental to maximize both his potential and value in terms of
the revolution.

 Alea makes his criticism seem somehow necessary in both films through the very
definition of the Cuban Revolution, which is to recreate and reinvent society . In
‘Strawberry and Chocolate’ it is done through David. The mere fact that his viewpoint at
the end of his intellectual journey is much more comfortable and logical in the face of an
ever-changing world than his viewpoint during his first meeting with Diego when he was
curious - but still judgmental and single-minded. His thought process evolves into a
better equipped machine with which to participate in a revolution. If metamorphosis
comes out of commentary and critique, Alea pleads, then such critique is vital to the
success of the movement.

 Review of one’s community resurfaces in ‘Memories of Underdevelopment’.
Alea proves this point by damning Sergio to a life that craves meaning (he is an
existential philosopher in a Socialist world) simply because he cannot accept the
revolution Alea so fiercely clings to. Particularly clear in ‘Memories of
Underdevelopment’, is Alea’s nod to show how essential the critique is by examining the
present state of society and changing or strengthening elements of it (as per the loose
definition of revolution above). Everyone seems to be partaking by strengthening or
changing themselves and society within the movement, in one way or another, from the
debate group to the filmmaker (played by Alea) to Sergio’s wife. The only one detached
is Sergio - and he is disoriented by it. The message could not be clearer if it were placed
on intertitles and flashed on the screen repeatedly throughout the duration of the film.

 Alea’s beliefs about the need to criticize one’s society and the role he and his
artist characters inhabit within that world all seem to revolve around the idea of
self-discovery. Sergio, by not choosing sides in the revolution, does not know himself.
Diego, by choosing sides and eventual balance to his position in the revolution, does
know himself. If one were to stand back from these two films and take Diego and Sergio
as the right way and the wrong way, respectively, to participate in the resurgence of one’s
country’s culture - one might get a full understanding of the kind of underlying message
of social criticism Alea incorporates into his films. His pro-Diego, anti-Sergio stance is
clear from the get-go. Alea displays just how strongly he believes in the revolution and its
power to make Cuba, his homeland, sing with the beauty of politics, culture and life.