Alea makes it very, very clear that this story is meant as a parallel to the
unfocused chaos that is Cuba at this time. He underlines that the revolutionary necessity
and action that is giving way to communism and oppression is akin to the
underdevelopment giving way to emptiness (as Elena begins to make Sergio feel more
lucid, he remarks to himself that his life feels more and more empty). Some of the
political aspects of this comparison, counterbalancing in obvious ways (the expository
agendas at the discussion forum where for a split second, Sergio hypothesizes that “the
American was right” - how did that pass by the scrutinizing governmental censors, I
wondered); and being exposed in more arcane ways: freeze frames add a sobering look at
the world around the characters, almost outside their personal contexts and a shocking bit
of newsreel footage adds to the film a historical voyeurism because in this instance, from
this point-of-view - with Sergio trapped inside the old consciousness of Cuba - it is a
satisfying peek from the outside in.

 Alea judges the bourgeoisie by putting Sergio on trial - its a flaw, almost, because
he makes Sergio the victim. Is Alea himself split about whether Sergio/Bourgeoisie are
really to be decried? This backs up the idea of a country in limbo between the ways of the
old and the new and how this concept is constantly infusing itself into the roaming need
of countrymen to define themselves as one side or the other. This is why Sergio is a great
subject and why he is so interesting: not only does he carry no specific affiliation, he
hardly seems interested in finding one. Almost an anti-hero in the way he is drunk on his
own poetic brooding and free-thinking mentality, Sergio’s political alliance seems to be
only to himself.

 Finally, it was drifting in my head that ‘Memories of Underdevelopment’ doesn’t
beg a finite conclusion like the neo-realist films did. They seemed to contain no definite
culmination in order to instill a sense of agitation at the destruction of normal film ideals
(that is, it was purposeful, they felt the films deserved an ending but were content to
excise one in the name of the movement). Alea’s film doesn’t beg an ending at all, in
fact, it meanders to a close like the poetic search for self that it is. And it occurred to me
that it felt more like the films of, as I stated, Rohmer and, indeed, Truffaut and Godard as
well. Specifically, the visualization and overall staging reminded me of Godard’s
contribution to the 1968 film ‘The Seven Capital Sins’(entitled ‘Sloth’). As Godard
envisioned the speed of laziness, Alea envisions a lyrical speed of his own protagonist.
Expertly, he steers the film out of a clear-cut discovery of self and into the territory that
reflects both Sergio and the country as “always in search of self-truth”.

     But the same cannot be said for Alea. In ‘Up to a Certain Point’, though its still
technically a reflexive film (in so much that a point-by-point argument is presented
through the filmmaker of a social issue), there is a prime difference between the
filmmaker and the character he is writing. The character he is writing is a more pure
example of what machismo does in a society where woman are largely subservient (that
is, to take his wife, or the woman who gives up all for him, for granted). In ‘Up to a
Certain Point’, the filmmaker only dodges that point on one front (the woman he falls
for) while displaying it on another (his wife). To articulate - it is a means to justify an
end. The means being the filmmaker and the end being his character, the very picture of
machismo: a man who has fallen in love amidst his societal tendencies and put his wife
on the backburner as his housemaid, cook and child-bearer. It’s strange, then that the
director, Alea, has created a character that is a dualist entity. He is clearly planning to
make a film decrying machismo on the grounds that it hurts women. When his wife calls
him “unprincipled and “hypocritical” - how right she is, in a different manner than I’m
sure she means. Our protagonist is a hypocrite, but not because he wants to speak out
against machismo and yet cheats on his wife. He is a hypocrite because he still believes
that machismo is wrong, yet practices it. The difference is slight, but as a nuance, it
remains. This is a man lying to everyone around him, even himself. And that last shot, of
him staring into excessive light, fuzzy at the peak of the tunnel he is standing in, is less a
bold neo-realist anti-conclusion than it is a man facing the realization, however cliched,
that he has learned from this experience more than he thought he knew. And that he
finally begins to see the price of machismo is something wonderful and beautiful. It’s a
skilled and smart take on man at war with himself over his impulses and beliefs.

     I kept having all these strangely loud calls in my head to contrast certain things.
For example, in ‘Memories of Underdevelopment’, the difference between lust and love
was almost nothing; Sergio was stuck in a circular maze where neither of them excited
him very much and he gave each of them as little of his warm attention as possible. He
was less racked with machismo than he was with a numbing self-importance. In ‘Up to a
Certain Point’, the difference between love and lust is there, but its geared more directly
to spell out the differences between characters. In the case of our protagonist - he has
about the same opinion of his wife as Sergio did (a different set of circumstances but a
similar feel). Our protagonist is capable of love and the major difference is the way he
clearly embraces this change by making it the focal point of his screenplay, and how his
financing, Arturo (who is also cheating on his wife), does not embrace the change. It’s a
set-up meant to get us thinking about how different men react to immorality based upon
how they feel the status of society governs such immorality (in our protagonist’s case, its
almost as if he doesn’t feel that cheating on his wife is wrong - but he’s passive, rather
than vehement about it. In another ironic flipside, Arturo’s wife, Mena, also doesn’t feel
its necessarily wrong as she states : “I’m not offended any more, I just feel sorry for
him”). Alea seems to be treating machismo as if it were a drug that effects different men
in different ways.

     Men in ‘Up To a Certain Point’ seems to be a sleep-walking contradiction. The
difference is, and Alea does this with a nice bit of dream imagery (remember the fuzzy
light at the end of the tunnel I was talking about), our protagonist seems to have awoken -
and seen his point. He could make a terrific film once this is over, if the financing wasn’t
yanked. He’s the only male character in the film who seems to be able to practice logic.
All those flashback video images of dock workers spouting shocking, cut-and-dried sexist
remarks are there for a reason. To make a necessary contrast between filmmaker and
subject, men and women, logic and nonsense. Alea presents maybe the most competent
film on the subject I’ve seen (not that I’ve seen all that many films by men that defend
women and call out men - and society - for their behavior towards women). Alea is a
brave and intelligent filmmaker.

        Initially, I had envisioned ‘Strawberry & Chocolate’ headed the direction of role reversal
and its inherent symbolism in Cuban society, where everyone considers themselves a part
of a revolution, trapped by the fact that their revolt has only thrown up walls where there
were none before. And, as the film proceeded, I was able to see that it was a story about
melting off the naive fixture that comes with single-minded depiction of others based
upon political dogma (in this case, homophobia and the ban on intellectual worldliness
i.e. foreign art). And finally, though I couldn’t put all the pieces together myself, I
thought of ‘Strawberry & Chocolate’ as a gigantic allegory - and that David and Diego
were merely metaphorical pawns in Alea’s depiction of Cuban society.
         And because the film is all of these things rolled into one - with a dramatic, stagy
feel to the dialogue - I could see Alea popping out of the corners of the frame. It was his
usual style, begging us to decipher this enigma of sorts that couldn’t possibly be limited,
as a film, to the tale of a man lured into a seemingly “subversive” arena where
contraband books and radical political science (David is given such a life lesson in the
major he has chosen at a government-funded university that, by the end, he has performs
the imminent 360’ turn necessary).
         Also interesting to note how the film deals with homosexuals. It was the
diametric opposite to the interpretation in Spanish films (read: Almodovar) dealing with
the homosexual lifestyle - and for that matter, the Hollywood exploitation of
homosexuals. The film is so low-key and so devoid of splashes of flamboyance, it is able
to more easily represent real people instead of cartoonish stereotypes. Alea seems so
uninterested in portraying Diego as the “no-no” gay man than as making him into a
scholarly friend who just happens to be gay. That David, initially, is a communist
homophobe, right from the start, the story takes off at a rapid speed, David showing signs
of reversing the effects of propaganda from the very first visit. The film is a masterful
example of how to celebrate your homeland and its people without succumbing to the
wishes and beliefs of those in power - especially since those in power happen to have
ideals that run completely against the grain of art, love and life - as Alea will argue.
         I liked the arc of David’s transformation. From the first visit to Diego’s (in search
of photographs of himself - read: in search of himself), he was curious about roaming to
the other side, the side he wasn’t affiliated with or studying. As his visits began to take
definite story shapes (some awkward and enlightening, some ending in anger, some
feeling the familiarity of friendship and some that were just candid and realistic), the film
began to turn on itself, hypothesizing and playing out the role reversal. David, in the
beginning, took on the opposing side of being the romantic among he and his girlfriend -
who ended up wanting nothing more than wealth, security and sex. As the film jumps
like lightning into his meeting with Diego - the ice cream meeting referenced in the title -
we can sort of see him in that “rebound” stage and the way Alea makes us believe Diego
will turn David into his lover is all the more powerful. Alea, without being outright,
likens the journey to love with the journey to intellectual freedom. As an audience, we
are suspicious of David because he’s cruel to Diego when he first meets him. Alea forces
David into the acceptance by browbeating him with the idea that homophobia is just
another shackle imposed on the Cuban people by their cruel leaders. Alea diminishes
repetition by giving the story so many shades, subtexts, subplots and nuances. Besides the
transformational meetings, David’s roommate is plotting to expose Diego, Diego’s
neighbor is planning to seduce David, Diego has an art show that his stubbornness has
excepted him from - and the list goes on and on. Alea seems well aware that for one story
to take flight, the rest have to be in complete harmony with the character’s change. David
can’t buy into Diego’s way of life without falling in love with Diego’s neighbor or
confronting his roommate.

      It’s all very relative.