Salut les Cubains

Salut les Cubains (1963) was directed by Agnès Varda. This film is really a montage of photographs taken by Varda in Cuba, just four years after the revolution. By manipulating the images, Varda can make a couple who are dancing--in stills--appear to be actually moving. (Not exactly dancing, but moving to the beat.) The music is wonderful, and it's good to see Cuba with the eyes of someone from a country who wasn't trying to destroy Cuba. (Remember that the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba had taken place just two years earlier, in 1961.)

We saw this film on the large screen at the excellent Dryden Theatre in the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY. This screening was part of an Agnès Varda retrospective, sponsored by Rochester Institute of Technology and the Eastman Museum. It's hard to know how the movie would look on a small screen. Unless you're a Varda fan, it's probably not worth seeking out.