The Lost City is a 2005 film directed by Andy García.
Plot
Fico Fellove (Andy Garcia) is the owner of El Tropico, a swank nightclub in late 1950s Havana. Fico lives for his family and his music, but the harsh realities of dictator Batista’s regime threaten to destroy both. Brother Ricardo (Enrique Murciano) becomes a Communist while brother Luis (Nestor Carbonell) joins the democratic opposition. His father Federico (Tomas Milian), a well-respected university professor, believes that Batista should be replaced by constitutional means.
When Ricardo is arrested for anti-regime activities and threatened with execution, Fico calls upon an old prep school friend, now a police captain (Captain Castel, played by Steven Bauer), for help. Due to the intercession of Captain Castel, Ricardo is released from jail. Although Fico suggests that Ricardo should go to Miami or New York for a while, Ricardo refuses and instead joins a communist rebel band headed by Che Guevara.
In addition to political intrigue, Fico is also approached by Meyer Lansky (Dustin Hoffman), a high ranking member of New York's Genovese crime family, who wishes to open up a gambling room at El Tropico. Fico however intends for his club to remain a place of music and turns down the offer. When a bomb later explodes at the club, killing the club’s star entertainer (who was also Fico’s love), Fico assumes that Lansky is behind it. However, in the increasingly unsettled climate, he cannot be certain.
Luis meanwhile becomes connected with the plot to seize the presidential palace, kill Batista, and restore democracy to Cuba. The plot fails and most of the attackers are killed. Luis escapes but is killed later by Batista’s secret police.
At the urging of his mother, Fico begins a relationship with Luis’ widow Aurora (Ines Sastre). Fico and Aurora fall in love, but events intervene: the Communists seize the power after Batista flees the country. Fidel Castro declares there will be no elections and Che Guevara oversees the arrests and summary execution of all those who those thought to have supported the Batista regime. Among those arrested is Captain Castel. Fico seeks out his brother Ricardo, now a high-ranking officer in the new regime, for help. Despite Castel's having saved his life, Ricardo does nothing to prevent Castel’s execution.
Ricardo, who had otherwise distanced himself from his family, later visits his uncle Donoso (Richard Bradford), a tobacco farmer and cigar maker. Donoso feels that while Castro may be in power now, “the land endures” and he says that the farm would one day pass to Ricardo. Ricardo, however, announces that the reason for his visit is to appropriate the farm for the state. In a fit of anger, Donoso has a heart attack and dies. Ricardo, overcome by grief, attends the funeral and shortly after commits suicide.
The revolution also has its effects on Fico’s club. The musician’s union, now controlled by Castro, has declared the saxophone to be an imperialist instrument and forbids its use. The club is eventually shut down on a flimsy pretext. After a chance meeting with Castro, Aurora is declared Revolutionary Widow of the Year and begins to work for the State. This causes Fico and Aurora to break apart.
Seeing the family torn apart and decimated by the revolution, Fico’s parents beg him to leave Cuba and build a new family. Reluctantly, Fico prepares to leave, procuring exit visas for himself and Aurora. In a last chance to convince her to leave, Fico barges in on a reception for revolutionary leaders and Soviet Bloc ambassadors. Aurora refuses to go. After a last toast to a free and democratic Cuba, Fico leaves the reception. He says his goodbyes to his parents (receiving his father’s prized pocket watch) and leaves Cuba. At the airport, most of his money and possessions (including his father’s watch) are taken from him.
Fico begins a new life in New York. Working as a dishwasher and piano player at a Cuban club, he hopes to save enough money to bring the remaining members of his family to America. He again meets Meyer Lansky, who offers Fico a Cuban nightclub in Las Vegas. Fico again refuses. While cleaning up that night, he has another meeting with Aurora, who is in New York as part of a Cuban delegation to the United Nations. He now realizes that Aurora is Cuba: beautiful, alluring, but ultimately unattainable. He decides now that his cause is to build a new life until he can return to the city he lost.
The movie ends with Fico reciting a poem by Cuban nationalist Father José Martí and opening a new nightclub in New York.
Che Guevara
In one scene of the film actor Jsu Garcia as Guevara is shown after an ambush casually shooting a wounded Batista soldier where he lies.[2] Later in the film the Guevara character asks Andy Garcia's character why he "bothers with such scum", in reference to a former Batista officer who was executed that morning for having previously taken part in torture.
Batista
The film however also depicts Cuban dictator at the time, Fulgencio Batista's "Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities" (BRAC) unit, executing a prisoner at la Cabana and shooting a wounded insurgent who had attempted to storm the Presidential palace during the growing popular rebellion.
Cast
Bill Murray as "The Comedian"
Bill Murray appeared in the movie as the character of "the Comedian". He shows up early in the movie asking Fico for a job, and hovers around Fico, commenting on the absurdities of life, though never playing a clear part in those absurdities. According to the “making of” video, the role is similar to that of a Greek chorus and is really the personality of the movie’s author G. Cabrera Infante. Again, according to the making-of video, Murray was given some latitude in improvising dialogue – the scene toward the end where Murray and Hoffman (as Meyer Lansky) discuss egg creams was almost entirely improvised. We know that his name is "the comedian" because he refers to himself as that a little while after he first appears.
A frequent criticism of the film[by whom?] is that Murray's character seemed completely out of place in a historical/political drama. Being a caricature of the writer and Greek chorus character seemed like a strange example of metafiction in an otherwise conventional movie.
Critical response
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This article may be inaccurate in or unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (September 2009) |
While receiving a "rotten" 26% rating on RottenTomatoes.com with 71 counted reviews, The Lost City scored more favorably with users of the same site, with a 69% "fresh" rating. Users of the Internet Movie Database rated it 6.9 stars out of 10, with 3,099 votes as of July 7, 2007. Ebert & Roeper gave it "two thumbs up".
Conservative Cuban-American writer Humberto Fontova contended on the website "Newsmax". http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/4/30/233226.shtml. that most critics were unnerved at Garcia's portrayal of the events leading to Castro's rise to power, commenting:
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Garcia — that cinematic bomb-thrower — has seriously jolted the Mainstream Media's fantasies and hallucinations of pre-Castro Cuba, of Che, of Fidel, and of Cubans in general. In consequence, the critics are unnerved and disoriented. Their annoyance and scorn is spewing forth in review after review.[3] |
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Notes and references
Actually, the author here is defending Andy Garcia's historical portrayal of pre-Castro Cuba. Cuba was more advanced socially than the US and Europe in many ways before Castro. His story was accurate.
See also
External links
