STRAWBERRY AND CHOCOLATE Movie Review

Fresa y Chocolate

Sex, politics, and friendship set in 1979 Havana. University student David (Vladimir Cruz) is slouching morosely in a cafe eating chocolate ice cream when he's eyed by the older, educated, gay, strawberry-eating Diego (Jorge Perugorria), who persuades David to visit him at his apartment. Resolutely heterosexual (and just as committedly communist), David is appalled both by David's sexuality and his “subversive” politics. Gradually, David is seduced by both friendship and ideas into questioning the harsh policies of the existing regime, including its homophobia. Based on the short story “The Wolf, the Forest, and the New Man” by co-screenwriter Senel Paz, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's Strawberry and Chocolate is a witty, often hilarious, profoundly humane entertainment, which serves as both a political parable and a deeply touching story of friendship in the face of differences. Alea's illness forced him to complete the film with the aid of an associate, but it's every inch the work of the brilliant and probing creator of Memories of Underdevelopment and Death of a Bureaucrat.

NEXT STOP … Memories of Underdevelopment, Guantanamera!, Kiss of the Spider Woman

1993 (R) 110m/C CU Jorge Perugorria, Vladimir Cruz, Mirta Ibarra, Francisco Gattorno, Jorge Angelino, Marilyn Solaya; D: Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Juan Carlos Tabio; W: Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Senel Paz; C: Mario Garcia Joya; M: Jose Maria Vitier. Nominations: Academy Awards ‘94: Best Foreign-Language Film. VHS TOU