Educational Media Reviews Online

While several recent documentaries have focused on life in present-day Cuba, this video covers more than 50 years of Cuban history, beginning with Fidel Castro’s efforts to overthrow President Fulgencio Batista and the subsequent triumph of the revolution in 1959, and carrying through to U.S. attempts to overthrow Castro, the exodus of Cubans to the U.S. over the years, and the current state of Cuba. The history is related in narration by British actor Michael York, and is supplemented with comments by Cubans from all walks of life, Cuban exiles now in the U.S., and American scholars and government officials.

This approach provides an interesting tapestry, with both pro- and anti-Castro viewpoints. We meet Manuel Yepe, a founding member of the Cuban Communist Party, who extols the continuing value of a socialist state, and Hubert Matos, who fought with Castro during the revolution, then was arrested in the first year of Castro’s rule for disagreeing with policies of the new regime. He spent 20 years in prison and was tortured, he says.

A former Cuban ambassador to the U.N., now living in the U.S., says elections to the Cuban National Assembly are a sham, while a University of Havana professor tries to justify the situation by saying “you are politically free when you do what you decide is better for your country.” Members of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution patrol their neighborhood to check on “counter-revolutionary activity,” while a veteran of the Bay of Pigs mission, the ill-fated attempt by exiles backed by the U.S. government to overthrow Castro in 1961, shows us a museum in Miami that commemorates the event.

The future of Cuba is also discussed, although the video was made before Fidel Castro turned over leadership of the country to his brother Raul. It was interesting to learn the different views of Cubans now living in America. While many of those who left in the first years after the revolution want to return to a post-Communist Cuba and re-create what they view as the golden days of a pre-Castro way of life, later émigrés don’t have this nostalgia for their homeland and plan to stay in the U.S. regardless of what happens to Cuba in the future.

A drawback to focusing on so many topics and people in a 76 minute video is that you don’t get any in-depth information on any of the areas. But this video is a good overview of the last half-century of Cuban history and is recommended for both public and academic libraries.