v5 marti olivella

16 Pages·2008·0.11 MB·English

Cuba and Spanish
Cinema’s Transatlantic
Gaze
Jaume Martí-Olivella holds Spectral Spectacles: From Gastronomy to
degrees in English Philology
the Consumption of Postnational Ruins
and Catalan Literature from
the University of Barcelona
and a degree in Comparative This essay seeks to historically, theoretically and
Literature from the University
politically contextualize Spanish cinema’s cur
of Illinois. He is a founding
rent transatlantic gaze and its persistent
member of the NACS (North
American Catalan Society). (re)vision of the Cuban subject. Historically, this
Currently an Associate Profes- (re)vision finds its central referent in the discourses
sor of Hispanic Film and Cul- generated around the centennial commemorations of
tural Studies at SUNY-Uni- the 1898 Spanish-American War. Politically, such
versity at Albany, Martí-
(re)vision is framed by the distancing and tension be-
Olivella has published exten-
tween Fidel Castro and José María Aznar. Manuel
sively on Catalan narrative,
Vázquez Montalbán skillfully chronicles this tense situ-
Hispanic film and cultural
theory. He has edited two spe- ation in his written account of Pope John Paul II’s
cial issues of the Catalan Re- historical trip to Havana in Y Dios entró en La Habana
view: “Homage to Merce (And God Landed in Havana). Vázquez Montalbán
Rodoreda” (1987) and writes:
“Women, History and Nation
in the Fiction of Maria Aurelia
The Spanish industrialists agree with him
Capmany and Montserrat
[Castro], while speaking of the second loss of
Roig” (1993). He has also co-
Cuba. They are perplexed and irritated to find
organized the First, Second,
out that despite the presence of four hundred
Third and Fouth International
and fifty Spanish firms in the International Com-
Conferences on Hispanic Cin-
mercial Fair in Havana, there was no official
ema and Literature, Portland,
Spanish representation, which contrasted sharply
1991, 1994, 1997, 2000). He
is now at work on a book-length with the presence of many delegations from other
study, Basque Cinema: The European nations. (434-5)1
Shining Paradox.
Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Volume 5, 2001
162 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
It seems, therefore, that the Partido Popu- servative moral attitudes occupy the narra-
lar, ruling Spain since 1996, is reenacting, tive center of this film which is very critical
at least as far as Cuba is concerned, its of Spanish society.
Francoist past of “Spain is different.” With the above historical, theoretical,
Theoretically, the persistence of cur- and political considerations in mind, this
rent Spanish cinema’s transatlantic gaze to- article analyzes some of the ideological and/
wards Cuba must be analyzed as the imagi- or aesthetic elements that come into play
nary articulation of two historical phenom- in the (re)vision of the Cuban subject un-
ena: the nostalgic reinscription of the Span- dertaken by the nostalgic gaze of “autono-
ish imperial subject and the touristic mous” Spain at the dawn of the twenty-first
commodification of the island as an erotic century, which also affects and regulates
and “archeological” paradise. Vázquez other Latin American filmic gazes. How-
Montalbán, in the text mentioned above, ever, before entering into a deeper analysis
summarizes this double Spanish projection of Maité and other recent filmic texts that
in very clear terms: “Spaniards in Cuba to- share the same Cuban referent, I would like
day are divided basically between tourists to widen the theoretical frame of my dis-
and industrialists. Tourists, themselves, are cussion. Firstly, I want to mention the role
composed of two “espeleo-logies:” search- given to tourism and communication by
ers of sex and searchers of revolutionary Jürgen Habermas in his book National and
archeologies” (441). Postnational Identities:
Maité (Carlos Zabala and Eneko
Olasagasti, 1995), the filmic text that will Communication and mass tourism
be the basis of most of my critical analysis, have their impact in a form less dra-
gives us a perfect example of that double matic (than the forced migrant
movements). […] Both effect muta-
presence. Mikel and Juan Luis Oraiola are
tions on our view of the immediate,
two Basque brothers who travel to Cuba in
by means of direct intuition, and on
the hope of saving their small family angula
the social mores, that are closely re-
(baby eel) business by refashioning it into a
lated to the realm of immediacy.
multinational enterprise. These two broth-
They train our gaze in heterogeneous
ers are emblematic of the tourists and in-
ways of life and in the real gradation
dustrialists described by Vázquez Montal- between our life conditions and those
bán. Zabala’s and Olasagasti’s film uses the existing elsewhere. (97)
family metaphor as national allegory and
forces the audience to confront the intoler- Undoubtedly, tourism and immigra-
ance and insularity of Basque and Spanish tion are the two most important demo-
national identity discourses by projecting graphic forces that have the largest influ-
them onto the Cuban mirror. Despite its ence on the reconfiguration of national
comedic tones, or perhaps due to them, identities as they gain, in this modern age,
Maité embodies some of the crucial aspects a new and increasingly flexible character.
of the political complexity of the Spanish And yet, with the introduction of the tour-
transatlantic gaze. Issues such as racism, the istic subject in the Spanish cinema’s gaze at
need for social and cultural hybridization, Cuba, we are faced with a case of recover-
and the questioning of Catholic and con- ing what is “ours” by consuming a simula-
Jaume Martí-Olivella 163
tion of what is “foreign.” That is to say, the in particular. In the case of the Cuban, there
filmic consumption of Cuban otherness al- is an added condiment (to continue with
lows Spaniards to visually recover their own the above gastronomic discourse). The re-
identity and historical property. ality of the Marxist specter is as abject on
The persistence of the colonial ghost the temporal and political axis as gas-
in this gesture seems evident to me, just as tronomy is on the cultural and bodily axis
the persistence of other phantasmatic dis- due to the persistence, both historical and
courses appear as symptomatic to Teresa virtual, of the Castro Revolution. In this
Vilarós in her analysis of the historical pe- sense, it may be appropriate to recall here
riod of the Spanish transition to democracy Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx, where he
(El mono del desencanto, The Disenchantment writes, in a spectral rather than a gastro-
Symptom). As Vilarós explains: nomic rhetoric, what amounts to a similar
abject reality:
Up to a certain point, it is correct to
state that many echoes and traces left There are several times of the spec-
in the air by Francoism’s ideology of ter. It is a proper characteristic of the
national Catholicism may be easily specter, if there is any, that no one
traced in the cultural production that can be sure if by returning it testifies
emerged after the dictatorship and, to a living past or to a living future,
with them, the spectral presence of for the revenant may already mark
imperial remnants. Bigas Luna’s film, the promised return of the specter of
Jamón, jamón (1992), despite the ab- living being. Once again, untimeli-
sence of any direct reference to ness and disadjustment of the con-
Francoism, appears as a clear illus- temporary. In this regard, commu-
tration of this point. […] And yet, nism has always been and will remain
the submerged presence of old sto- spectral: it is always still to come and
ries, structures, and ideologies over- is distinguished, like democracy it-
flows wildly in the guise of parodic self, from every living present under-
simulacra that now run, not through stood as plenitude of a presence-to-
high-brow spheres and politics, but itself, as totality of a presence effec-
through those low realms of sex and tively identical to itself. Capitalist
guts. Following the trail of a perverse societies can always heave a sigh of
celebration blazed by the early writ- relief and say to themselves: commu-
ings of the first transition, Bigas Luna nism is finished since the collapse of
tells us, at the end of the period, the the totalitarianisms of the twentieth
story of a wildly phallic and pecu- century and not only is it finished,
liarly patriarchal gastronomy, one but it did not take place, it was only
that recalls other ancestral and dep- a ghost. They do no more than dis-
redating appetites. (234) avow the undeniable itself: a ghost
never dies, it remains always to come
Vilarós’s analysis of Bigas Luna’s pa- and to come-back. (99)2
rodic gesture is still relevant today and helps
us to understand a new kind of cultural Cuba incorporates, in my opinion, this
gastronomy (to use Vilarós’s term) that is doubly spectral and atemporal condition
both local and global and also centers itself described by Derrida by having the histo-
on the Hispanic in general and the Cuban ricity of the Marxist revolution coexist with
164 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
its spectral virtuality. The following state- in contemporary society. Baudrillard claims
ment of Vázquez Montalbán’s can be un- that reproduction, rather than production,
derstood in this light: is at the core of the symbolic logic inherent
in multinational capitalism:
There are, however, almost twenty
Spanish universities that sign agree- It is Walter Benjamin who, in “The
ments with Cuba, together with a Work of Art in the Era of Mechani-
very important gesture of Spanish cal Reproduction,” first elicited the
solidarity, mainly from leftist munici- implications essential in this prin-
palities or from associations specially ciple of reproduction. He shows that
formed to assist the Cubans; to help
reproduction absorbs the process of
a Revolution that thousands of Span-
production, changing its finalities
iards regard as their own, an adopted
and altering the status of product and
Revolution that makes up for the one
producer. He demonstrates this mu-
they could not have on their own
tation on the terrain of art, cinema
land. (435)
and photography, because it is there
that open up, in the 20th century,
In the current nostalgia boom, there-
new territories without a tradition of
fore, Cuba offers a double and contradic- classical productivity, and that are
tory stimulus for the new Spanish touristic placed immediately under the sign
subject: to be able to satisfy at the same time, of reproduction. But we know that
almost unconsciously, his/her historical- today all material production enters
imperial and/or erotic-revolutionary frus- into this sphere. We know that now
trations and appetites. Or, in other words, it is on the level of reproduction
(fashion, media, publicity, informa-
Cuba is a living museum where commu-
tion and communication networks),
nism and the imperial past are (con)fused
on the level of what Marx negligently
in their spectral reality.
called the nonessential sectors of
The dual reality of the tourist—tem-
capital (we can hereby take stock of
poral and spatial—is perceived from the
the irony of history), that is to say in
very moment one steps foot on the streets the sphere of the simulacra and of
of Havana and feels the sensation of enter- the code, that the global process of
ing a time warp or the set of an old Holly- capital is founded. (98-99)3
wood thriller from the fifties. The persis-
tence of the past in the present is so evident The revision of the Cuban subject by Spain’s
that, ultimately, one ends up not seeing the transatlantic cinema falls into this category
historical reality but its spectral simulation. of consumption and, in my opinion, con-
And it is through the cultural and media stitutes one of the most prominent examples
construction of this spectral simulation that of performing the postnational condition
the discourses of global consumption— of contemporary Spain within a traditional
touristic, gastronomic and political—of all nationalist discourse.
things Cuban is articulated. Jean Baudri- Any discussion of postnational per-
llard, elaborating on Walter Benjamin’s pio- formance needs to take into account the
neering work, helps us understand the sym- current media construction “Latin chic,” a
bolic character of any form of consump- phenomenon already evident in the world-
tion—political, touristic and gastronomic— wide consumption of the music of the
Jaume Martí-Olivella 165
Buena Vista Social Club made famous by were there because the film in no way
Wim Wenders’s successful film of the same interrogates ‘whiteness.’ These folks
name. Perhaps the easiest and most recent left the film saying it was ‘amazing,’
‘marvelous,’ ‘incredibly funny,’ wor-
illustration of this phenomenon, as seen
thy of statements like, ‘didn’t you love
from the United States, may be summarized
it?’ And no, I didn’t just love it. For
by an article published in The New York
in many ways the film was a graphic
Times on Sunday, October 22, 2000. Its
documentary portrait of the way in
headline reads: “Paris Burns to a Tropic
which colonized black people (in this
Beat. For the Latest French Chic, a Restau- case black gay brothers, some of
rant Borrows from Brazil’s Shantytowns.” whom were drag queens) worship at
It is, in fact, the name of the restaurant, the throne of whiteness, even when
“Favela Chic,” that best summarizes the such worship demands that we live
spectral gastronomy of consumption being in perpetual self-hate, steal, lie, go
hungry, and even die in its pursuit.
considered here. Guy Trebay chronicles the
The ‘we’ evoked here is all of us,
phenomenon in the following terms:
black people/people of color, who are
daily bombarded by a powerful colo-
Proof of this proposition might be
nizing whiteness that seduces us away
the restaurant itself, a frenetic Bra-
from ourselves, that negates that
zilian dive in the 11th Arrondisse-
there is beauty to be found in any
ment with the name Favela Chic.
form of blackness that is not imita-
Favelas are the hillside slums of Bra-
tion whiteness. (149)
zil, which in no way resemble even
the grungiest sections of Paris. And
We are, once again, consuming the
‘chic’ is the last word that would ever
cultural representations that colonize, by
be applied to those appalling
means of consumption, the historical real-
shantytowns. But the oxymoron is
intentional, affectionate and meant ity that it portends to represent. This colo-
to convey something like a French- nization is none other than a taste-enhanc-
ified version of that most American ing “spice,” since it allows for the consump-
of concepts, Ghetto Fabulous. tion by the colonizers of social and racial
‘People in favelas don’t have any otherness without one having to leave the
choice about living there,’ explained comfort of the chic restaurants and movie
Rosane Mazzer, one of Favela Chic
houses of the metropolis. It is not surpris-
three owners. ‘But they still have a
ing, therefore, that the two Latin films most
lot of energy, of life. It’s their own
highly circulated in the North American
chic.’ (1)
screens last season were Orfeu, Carlos
Diegues’ remake of the classic Black
In a similar vein, bell hooks responds
Orpheus, and Woman On Top, by Fina
to this Latin chic and its hidden racial and
Torres, the Venezuelan director who has
class ideologies in her analysis of Jennie
made Paris her principal residence.5
Livingston’s film, Paris is Burning:4
Diegues’s film is a perfect example of the
economy of commodified simulacra defined
Watching Paris is Burning, I began
by Baudrillard, since it transforms the
to think that the many yuppie-look-
ing, straight-acting, pushy, predomi- shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro from urban
nantly white folks in the audience ruins into a national allegory of a Brazil that
166 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
gets reduced to its music and its carnival. by Joseba Zulaika, Annabel Martín, and
Fina Torres’s film is more self-conscious of Joseba Gabilondo powerfully illustrate.6
its central gastronomical metaphor. Torres, The second postnational and transat-
whose previous film Mecánicas celestes (Ce- lantic performance took place with the 1992
lestial Clockwork, 1994) is a fairy tale about Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona. Like
cultural hybridization in France, benefits Bilbao, Barcelona also built on her histori-
from the social and commercial simulacra cal ruins: the Olympic village was literally
of “favela chic” in order to make her first constructed on the ruins of the shantytowns
entry into Hollywood. She does this through occupied by gypsies in the Barceloneta area,
the reconstruction of Penélope Cruz as a whereas the new Olympic sites were built
generic Latino-Brazilian, a woman who is on Montjuïc, the enclave of other quite sig-
ready and eager to offer her culinary talents nificant historical ruins, as the very name—
and erotic nature in order to fully satisfy Mountain of Jews—indicates. Despite this,
the scopic desires of the white North Ameri- Barcelona became a “gypsy enchantress,” if
can males that the film clearly attracts. Thus, one recalls the lyrics of the rumba song by
in a rather circuitous way, we come back to Los Manolos, which became the unofficial
Jamón Jamón and its figuration of the re- anthem of the Games. Both the inaugural
turn of the repressed, of that patriarchal and and closing ceremonies of the Games, more-
predatory subjectivity of a neoimperial over, were staged as spectacles of a pan-His-
Spain which Vilarós recalled so vividly. panic identity emblematized by huge hu-
As I pointed out earlier, such a cin- man rings of sardana (Catalonian dance)
ematic gaze can be analyzed as belonging to performers that were soon intertwined with
a series of cultural transformations con- other human rings of flamenco dancers and
ceived postnationally but within a national Andalusian horse riders, all of them fused
register. I now return briefly to three post- under the aura of the Olympic rings. Crown-
national performances whose common ele- ing the event, the Spanish royal family pre-
ment is, precisely, their projection of a tour- sided over the proceedings, thus reinforc-
istic and spectacular gaze upon the ruins, ing the national allegory from the very cen-
not of a Benjaminian allegorical past, but ter of Spain’s largest postnational perfor-
those of an historical present. These three mance broadcast to the global village.7
Spanish transatlantic performances are lo- With the arrival of 1998 came the
cated in Bilbao, Barcelona and Cuba, re- most recent of these three major Spanish
spectively. They escape the Spanish national spectacles: the transformation of particular
framework to which they are reduced; thus sites of Cuban historical importance into
they perform the postnational condition of sites of consumption and Spanish national
Spain within a national hegemony. identity through nostalgia, with imperial-
The first one is the transformation of ist overtones. As mentioned previously,
the industrial ruins of Bilbao into the ur- around the time of the centennial com-
ban foil of the Guggenheim Museum, ar- memorations of the Spanish-American war
guably the most spectacular and spectral in Cuba, the Caribbean island has once
metaphor of the collusion between local and again taken a central place in the Spanish
global, or between national and postna- imaginary. It has become a living museum
tional, as the essays devoted to the subject where the ruins of Socialism may be expe-
Jaume Martí-Olivella 167
rienced first hand and then re-codified in a My critical analysis will be framed,
series of narratives that constitute themselves therefore, by this theoretical and historical
as postnational performances and nostalgic background. Ultimately, the question still
supplements for the neocolonial and proto- remains: do Spaniards continue to be im-
national discourses of the Spanish subject. mersed in the identity politics of a transi-
In fact most Spanish films about Cuba tion that positioned the national subject as
have narratives that represent and problem- divided? The Spanish subject’s division lies
atize identity shifts. Often, Spanish tour- between the nostalgic return of the histori-
ists and industrialists find their identities cally repressed and the persistence of
reinforced through the fictional simulacra postnationalist discourses conceived as na-
of cultural hybridities that are postnational tionally self-exclusive.
in nature. Thus, the economic “reposses-
sion” of the island acquires a double his- The Density of the Textual
torical symbolism, as suggested by Vázquez
Context
Montalbán:
One only needed to glimpse at the
Of the six hundred foreign firms le-
Spanish billboards and bookstores in the
galized in Cuba, a hundred and
summer of 2000 to realize the textual den-
eighty are Spanish and the applica-
tions to invest in the island are grow- sity of that moment of Spain’s transatlantic
ing by the day, especially among ho- gaze. For example, the presence of six Latin
tel owners who are in search of the American films, alongside many Spanish
touristic offer of the almost virgin films, was surprising in a market almost al-
keys. In the meantime, other Span-
ways dominated by Hollywood and French
ish-owned hotels are becoming the
cinema. These six films were: Lista de espera
cultural location of Havana’s most
(Juan Carlos Tabío, Cuba), Un lugar en el
significant social life, especially the
Habana Libre and the Meliá- paraíso (Gerardo Chijona, Cuba), Che, hasta
Cohiba. (435) la victoria siempre (Juan Carlos Desanzo,
Argentina), Tierra de fuego (Miguel Littin,
The island, as a symbolic and touristic ter- Chile), Mundo grúa (Pablo Trapero, Argen-
ritory, is still almost “virgin.” “Her” repos- tina), and Hijos del viento (José Miguel
session by the neocolonial Spanish subject, Juárez, Mexico).
under the guise of the hotel owner or the It is important to understand that the
sexual tourist, satisfies a double sense of loss: Spanish transatlantic gaze, in its nostalgic
the historical and the imaginary. One and neoimperialist articulation, is centered
achieves a certain degree of territoriality on on Cuba. At the same time, because of its
the island while fulfilling imaginary and Atlantic scope, it also interpellates other
nationalist desires for revenge on the em- Latin American national cinemas such as
pire that took that very property from “us,” the Mexican or the Argentinean—through
by means of transgressing the economic coproductions, casting, etc. As a result, the
blockade imposed on the island by that very Spanish scopic fix on Cuba can be detected
same empire, the United States of America. in these other national cinemas while the
168 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
Spanish discourse of imperialism and nos- Two of the other six Latin American
talgia also transforms their gazes upon their films exhibit the colonial referent as their
own national and cultural identities. There- narrative centers: the Chilean Tierra de fuego
fore, it is important to begin by analyzing, and the Mexican Hijos del viento. The most
not just Spanish but also Latin American interesting (though perhaps not the best),
films. Only in this way, will we be able to Tierra de fuego was directed by another great
capture the new transatlantic—and post- veteran filmmaker, Miguel Littin. This film
national—condition of the Spanish filmic presents the story of Rumanian Julius
gaze. Popper’s attempt to colonize Patagonia,
Of the six films cited above, two are which also offers another version of the
Cuban: Lista de espera and Un lugar en el double, allegorical temporality to which I
paraíso. The former was directed by Juan refer in the theoretical introduction. On the
Carlos Tabío, the co-director of Guanta- one hand, the film appears as a new read-
namera, the last production of Tomás ing of the madness of the colonial enter-
Gutiérrez Alea, whose Strawberry and prise, in the style of Werner Herzog’s
Chocolate opened up the international mar- Aguirre, or the Wrath of God, and on the
ket for new Cuban cinema. The latter was other, it offers us a new cryptic version of
directed by Gerardo Chijona who also made Chile under Pinochet’s dictatorship, spe-
Adorables mentiras (Adorable Lies). His new cially if we recall Popper’s words and his
film, like the previous one, is a musical with “crusade against barbarism.”
melodramatic structure, which allegorizes The other colonial-themed film is
the nation using the family metaphor and, Hijos del viento (1999), by Mexican film
consequently, narrates the problems of di- director José Miguel Juárez, another Span-
versity and truthfulness while, at the same ish-Mexican coproduction fully inscribed
time, celebrating the immense richness of within the neoimperial industry of nostal-
Cuba’s racial and cultural hybridation. gia fueled by the new transatlantic gaze of
The Cuban referent fully occupies the contemporary Spanish cinema. This inscrip-
central space of the third Latin American tion is evident already in the casting of
film: the Argentinean Che, hasta la victoria, Carlos Fuentes for the role of Rodrigo, the
directed by Juan Carlos Desanzo. As he pre- lieutenant of Hernán Cortés, whose persona
viously did with Evita Perón, the veteran will appear in the dream of an Aztec prin-
Argentinean director succeeds in humaniz- cess as the reincarnation of Quetzacoatal;
ing the historical myth of Che while, at the his imaginary or spectral arrival is the cause
same time, giving us a view of the hero’s of the downfall of Moctezuma’s empire. It
real-life ordeal, which adds texture to the is worthwhile to pause on the analysis of
body of its hero, the legendary guerrilla the casting of Juárez’s film, since it offers us
commander. Considering Che, hasta la one of the best instances of this spectral re-
victoria along with the two above Cuban turn of the historical repressed to which
films places us in this atemporality or double Vilarós referred in her study of the Spanish
temporality of the Derridean specter by pre- transition and its phantasms.
senting the coexistence of the dualistic Cu- Juárez’s casting strategy is twofold.
ban dream: that of the erotic-musical para- The first component his strategy recalls the
dise and that of the revolutionary phantasm. double phantasm of Spanish history. One
Jaume Martí-Olivella 169
must take into account that the young ac- internal criticism to the Spanish ordeal in
tor Fuentes gained notoriety in Spain Juárez’s film. The character of Cortés in
through his performance in Taxi by Carlos Hijos del viento, however, is introduced as
Saura, where his character was already di- religious and ambitious, and not as fanatic,
vided between the law of love and his patri- inhuman, or unnecessarily cruel.
archal debt to fascist, xenophobic violence. Perhaps the most interesting irony in
Carlos Fuentes, moreover, was the protago- Juárez’s casting strategy, however, might be
nist of Mambí (1998), the epic “film” about his implicit reference to the change in em-
the Cuban War by directors Teodoro and pires (Spanish to North American) when
Santiago Ríos, both from the Canary Is- incorporating the North American actor
lands. This film, next to El Dorado by Saura, Bud Spencer in the role of the tortured and
was the Spanish film that most clearly shows finally defeated Aztec emperor Moctezuma.
a transatlantic gaze as sign of friendship and/ Spencer’s presence seems to incorporate an
or reparation as it engages in narratives con- imperial irony since the United States gov-
taining interracial and intercultural stories. ernment captured the South West the same
These stories signal the historical beginning way that it took over Cuba.
of a process of hybridation which does not The references to this shift of empires
follow armed violence but rather love’s are also present in the two films I mentioned
power. In Hijos del viento, Rodrigo, Carlos above. In Flores de otro mundo, director
Fuentes’s character, ends up marrying the Bollaín presents us with Cuban character
Aztec princess, forming the first marriage Milady dressed with tight spandex pants
between a native and a Christian official. imprinted with a United States flag. A close-
This new union works as narrative coun- up of the pants precedes a hilarious scene
terpoint to the legendary relationship be- where Milady “humiliates” Carmelo’s mas-
tween Marina, La Malinche, and Hernán culinity, thus establishing the real dominant
Cortés, which is the infamous master nar- symbolic order. At the end of our other
rative of the Mexican patriarchal imaginary filmic referent, Mambi, a Yankee horseman
so paradigmatically defined by Octavio Paz. is the one humiliating the Canarian Goyo,
The second component of Juárez’s an ex-Spanish soldier now turned into Cu-
casting strategy relies on his choice for the ban colonist; the Yankee shouts: “Get back
role of Hernán Cortés: José Sancho, the in line! Get out of here, bastard!” The shift
veteran Spanish actor who had just finished in master and/or empire over Cuba is, there-
another Spanish film centered on Cuba, fore, explicitly visualized. Goyo, on the
Iciar Bollaín’s Flores de otro mundo (Flowers other hand, much like Rodrigo in Hijos del
From Another World, 1999). Sancho plays viento, decides to remain in the ex-colony,
the role of Carmelo, the construction man- in the (re)discovered country. This is rein-
ager who travels to Cuba as a sexual tourist forced in the film by his new marriage,
several times and who, at the beginning of which allegorizes the history of Hispanic
the film, returns to his village with Milady, hybridization based on the metaphorical
his Cuban erotic trophy. Sancho’s dramatic image of the loved woman as desired/colo-
persona as the “Spanish macho” who has nized nation. Thus, I must conclude that,
(re)conquered Cuba in this new vein of Hijos del viento, despite its voluntaristic re-
erotic-colonial tourism adds an element of visionism, ends up reinforcing this
170 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
phantasmatic and imperial nostalgia that the complex labyrinths of desire: the
permeates the transatlantic gaze of contem- simultaneous desire and rejection of
porary Spanish cinema.8 the woman of one’s own race, the
legitimate spouse, and the passion
However, this synchronic cut into the
and hatred of another woman, of a
year 2000 must be complemented with a
different race. (2-6)9
diachronic dig into the textual density pre-
sented here. This diachronic dig unearths a
Verdaguer’s film is undoubtedly meri-
filmic genealogy that goes back to the year
torious for its historical recreations. At the
1992. For the time being, I will limit this
same time, the film suffers precisely from a
archaeology to the Spanish side, although a
scopic indulgence, which is almost absolute
more comprehensive examination would
in its representation of this allegory of eroti-
have to include also the Latin American
cized colonization. In this respect, the film
reinscription of the new Spanish neoimperi-
anticipates the trend that, at the end of the
alist and nostalgic gaze over Cuba, in par-
decade of the ‘90s, will recapture comedies
ticular, and Latin America, in general. In
such as the one already mentioned, Maité
this emblematic year, 1992, the Catalan
(1995) by Zabala and Olasagasti, as well as
director Toni Verdaguer presented his
Cuarteto de la Habana (Havana’s Quartet,
Havanera 1820, which was cowritten with
1999) by Fernando Colomo.10
Jaume Fuster and Jaume Cabré. This film
This archaeology of the Spanish gaze
is contextualized in the following way by
and its textual density brings us back to the
critic Galina Bakhtiova in her study entitled
end of the 1990s and early 2000s when
“Havanera 1820 by Antoni Verdaguer:
many films proliferate as the date of 1998
Catalonia, Cuba, and Colonial Desire” (my
approaches. Besides Mambí and Flores de
translation):
otro mundo, arguably the two most inter-
esting films with a Cuban referent, I would
In its focus on this colonial past,
like to briefly discuss four very recent Span-
Havanera 1820 inserts itself in the
ish movies: Frontera Sur (South Border,
recent trend of imperial nostalgia of
1998), El invierno de Aljamas (Aljama Win-
films such as Passage to India by
ter, 1999), Ataque verbal (Verbal Attack,
David Lean or Indochine by Regis
Wargnier. The film was shot in mu- 2000), and La noche de Constantinopla (The
seum-houses in Catalonia and in the Constantinople Night, 2000).
historical patrimony area of Trinidad, Next to the epic-historical character-
in the Cuban province of Las Villas. ization of Mambí, for example, we encoun-
By representing the historical reality ter Gerardo Herrero’s Frontera Sur, a realis-
of elegant and luxurious spaces of tic film with fantastic overtones. The film
mansions in Barcelona, Canet, and
tells the story of Roque Díaz (José Coro-
Cuba, the filmmakers rescue and
nado), the “gallego”11 emigrant who arrives
highlight the myth of the ‘Americans
to Argentina in the early years of the twen-
[…].’ In Havanera 1820, a cinemato-
tieth century. He hears the following em-
graphic work of the last decade of
blematic words uttered by Piera (Maribel
the 20th century, colonial desire is
Verdú), the madam of a fashionable brothel:
associated not only with the mulatto
woman—a woman of another “At some point in time, you gotta lose your
race—but with the refiguration of past.” Just as in Havanera 1820, Herrero’s