Tomas Gutierrez Alea has been the most prominent of the filmmakers working in Cuba's government-supported film institute, the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematograficos (ICAIC). Gutierrez Alea is a committed revolutionary; and his best features explore the social, political, and historical dimensions of the revolutionary process. Frequently this exploration shows a sharp critical edge as the director examines and critiques the flaws of revolutionary Cuban society. Death of a Bureaucrat (1966) satirically spoofs an excessive bureaucratization that hounds Cubans even beyond the grave. In Up to a Point (1984), the director takes on the machismo and sexual double standard very much alive amongst Cuban male intellectuals and his own companeros in ICAIC.

Gutierrez Alea once again turns his critical gaze to Cuban revolutionary society in his latest feature, the superbly acted Strawberry and Chocolate (1993). This comedy-drama follows the development of a friendship between two young men. The straight David is a naive but convinced Communist militant who was brought up on the party line and now aspires to be a writer. Diego is an intelligent, cultured, and sophisticated gay who has seen his options in society disappear because of his sexual orientation. At the end of the film, discrimination and professional and personal pressure are such that Diego opts to accept the help of a friendly foreign embassy in order to emigrate. He leaves in spite of his pro-Revolution sympathies and his friend's claims that there is a place for gays in the Cuban Revolution. A subplot explores the virginal David's romantic and sexual relationships with two women. The action is set in Havana in 1979, a period of considerable discrimination against homosexuals. To tell this story, the director effectively draws on the conventions of mainstream realist cinema; he does not break new ground stylistically. The film is freely adapted from the extremely popular short story by Send Paz, "The Wolf, the Woods and the New Man."

Given the profound economic crisis currently gripping Cuba, it is astonishing that a feature such as Strawberry and Chocolate could be produced. The situation in ICAIC is desperate. Top directors such as Gutierrez Alea earn the approximate equivalent of $5.00 per month, and the once relatively well-funded ICAIC filmmakers can now undertake a feature only if coproduction money is available. The low-budget Strawberry and Chocolate, for instance, could not have been produced without Mexican and Spanish support. Production problems were further complicated when Gutierrez Alea, sick with cancer, had to undergo surgery. At that time a frequent collaborator, Juan Carlos Tabio, was brought on board the project as codirector. In spite of these problems, the film boasts strong production values.

Strawberry and Chocolate continues a trend in ICAIC in the 1990s that has led filmmakers to examine their society in an increasingly critical fashion. Daniel Diaz Torres's Alice in Wondertown (1991) was such a far- reaching critique of an out-of-killer revolutionary society that authorities prematurely yanked it from exhibition and thus created a major scandal (see Cineaste, Vol. XX, No. 1). Gerardo Chijona's Adorable Lies (1991) exposes a corrupt functionary who uses the funds of the Revolution for his own personal gain. But the serious treatment of gay characters had been almost unknown in Cuban revolutionary cinema before Strawberry and Chocolate.

This cinematic invisibility of gay characters is not surprising since the treatment of homosexuals under the Revolution represents a dark stain on the revolutionary record. In 1965 Fidel Castro told Lee Lockwood (in Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel) that "we would never come to believe that a homosexual could embody the conditions and requirements of conduct that would enable us to consider him a true Revolutionary, a true Communist militant. A deviation of that nature clashes with the concept we have of what a militant Communist must be." In the mid-1960s the infamous UMAP work camps (Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Produccion) sought to rehabilitate alleged antisocial elements such as homosexuals. The purges and denunciations of homosexuals continued into the 1980s. Today discrimination against homosexuals still represents a major problem. The Revolution has meaningfully dealt with gender and racial discrimination but not with discrimination against homosexuals, and they are still restricted from joining the Cuban Communist Party. In recent interviews, Castro has shown a more tolerant attitude towards the homosexual community, but until very recently most gays had no group to represent them.

The enormous popularity of Strawberry and Chocolate in Cuba has now succeeded in placing the situation and rights of gays squarely on people's agendas to be discussed and debated. Socially and politically, therefore, Strawberry and Chocolate is a breakthrough film for Cuba. As an ideological project, it appears to represent a belated attempt to recuperate the gay community for the Cuban revolutionary project. The film's message of tolerance can be read as a call for revolutionary solidarity in the face of the current economic debacle and an increasingly cloudy political future.

Outside of Cuba, Strawberry and Chocolate represents considerably less, since its sexual politics are dated. In interviews and public pronouncements, both directors have stressed that the central theme of their film is tolerance and that the gay subtheme is merely a convenient illustration of that question. The codirectors, who are straight, thus take a liberal approach to a universal theme. This liberal approach and the film's easy stylistic accessibility may contribute to international success at the box office, but at the same time these factors prevent the film from being radical either esthetically or politically. And Strawberry and Chocolate is not a gay film. It does not significantly explore the history of homosexual oppression in Cuba; gay sexual pleasure is not shown and gay relationships are given short shrill; and the camera generally prefers David's heterosexual point of view. Furthermore, the film's gay protagonist perhaps too conveniently combines physical attraction, artistic sensibility, and socialist and nationalist viewpoints in order to assure mainstream audience appeal Strawberry and Chocolate, then, is a modest project in comparison to the director's radical masterpiece Memories of Underdevelopment (1968), where an innovative self-reflective style meshed perfectly with the filmmaker's central concern of subtly and complexly portraying a middle class intellectual trapped between his sympathy for the Revolution and his inability to commit himself fully to it.

The commercial release of Strawberry and Chocolate in the U.S. is a welcome event because U.S. authorities have at times hounded Gutierrez Alea - by, for example, denying his visa requests or blocking exhibition of his works. This interviewer's videotape copy of Memories of Underdevelopment was confiscated by U.S. Customs in Los Angeles when he entered the country on December 11, 1993, after having legally attended the annual International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana. U.S. Customs, however, neglected to seize the tapes of interviews with Tabio and Gutierrez Alea recorded in Havana during that festival. The conversation with Gutierrez Alea continued in Juarez, Mexico, during the Second Festival of Latinamerican Cinema Paso del Norte in August 1994. The interviews have been translated from the Spanish and edited by Dennis West and Joan M. West.

Cineaste: Revolution is the central theme of almost all your films. Why take up the subject of the intolerance of some revolutionary companeros precisely at this time?

Tomas Gutierrez Alea: I think that intolerance is not just a current theme. This theme could have been examined a long time ago, but I confronted it and decided to make this movie after having read the short story by Senel. That doesn't mean that I hadn't thought about the theme before. I had just never found a way to approach it. When the short story appeared, I realized that that was what I wanted to do.

Cineaste: Why is the action of the film set in 1979 instead of 1993?

Gutierrez Alea: 1979 represents the end of a historical period, because the Mariel boatlift occurred in 1980, and that caused many things to change. So we preferred not to burden our plot with additional complications. The period before 1979 was also the time of greatest repression or discrimination against homosexuals.

Cineaste: The Revolution's social problems that you examine in addition to intolerance - the black market, homosexuals' right to work, the freedom of the artist, and revolutionary surveillance - are they just as much problems in Cuban society today as they were in 1979?

Gutierrez Alea: Yes, of course. The black market has become so generalized that all Cubans, in order to survive, must resort to it in one way or another. And there has always been revolutionary watchfulness. It increases during critical periods; at other times it is less. At times there is a real reason to have revolutionary watchfulness, but at other times it may be a pretext to commit certain excesses. It has always represented a threat to the counterrevolution - more particularly in earlier revolutionary times than now - so surveillance is something real. But at times it has dampened people's activities and made their lives impossible. The best way to counter this problem is, first of all, to become aware that this is an aberration, and then to make fun of it a bit - which is just what the film does.

As for homosexuals' right to work, they have always been able to work. However, in given periods homosexuals have been barred from certain types of employment. They have been barred from teaching, for example, since it represents contact with youngsters. Now there is greater flexibility in job opportunities for homosexuals. In the case of representing Cuba abroad, for example, the appointment of representatives used to be handled with kid gloves when homosexuals were involved. Many people were against appointing them because they were considered more vulnerable to scandal and blackmail -and that's true, we've seen it in countries such as England and the United States - but things are very different nowadays for homosexuals. Many Cuban homosexuals are now open about their sexual orientation. Others are not open about it - just like anywhere else - but there is a new level of awareness concerning homosexuality.

Cineaste: What about the problem of freedom of artistic expression, which is exemplified by German and his sculptures?

Gutierrez Alea: The film itself demonstrates that things can be said. A couple of years ago there was a scandal concerning the film Alice in Wondertown. That scandal was like a vaccination [for the government] because that situation was so utterly stupid and heavy-handed. That sort of situation cannot be repeated; the political cost is too high.

Ten years ago the sort of censorship in the plastic arts that happened to German in the film was indeed common. Nowadays I have seen exhibits of paintings that were much more daring. For instance, I remember one installation that alludes to the exodus on rafts from Cuba. It was quite interesting, very dramatic. Formerly this would have been banned, but not now. So, this question depends on the precise historical moment. That is not to say that censorship has disappeared, but one always finds a way to say things.

Cineaste: The performances by the two lead actors represent one of the great successes of the film. How did you select and work with these actors?

Gutierrez Alea: Our initial conception of these two characters was quite different from the final version seen on screen. According to our original concept, the gay character, Diego, should have been a mature individual between the ages of thirty-five and forty. He would not necessarily have been physically attractive, but he would have possessed an interior attraction because of his maturity, wisdom, and personality. He was to have exerted a certain fascination over the other character, but not a fascination based on physical attraction.

The other character, according to our original conception, was to have been a twenty-something-year-old youth who was inexperienced, very naive, very young, very immature, and very beautiful. He was to have been a prototypical ephebus. And originally the gay character was to become immediately enamored of him -love at first sight.

We just couldn't find the appropriate actors to fulfill these initial concepts of the characters. Finally we had to make a concession, and I am extremely satisfied with what we did. Now I think it would have been a mistake to have a homosexual character who was not as attractive at first sight as the one we have. Attractiveness is one of the qualities the character needs in order for the spectator to identify with him. An empathy needs to be established between the gay character and the viewer. The actor that we chose was able to do this. It all would have been harder with a different actor who did not possess that gracia or charisma.

Vladimir [Cruz], the actor who portrays David, is very intelligent. He was capable of playing this role quite well; because of his age, he is very close to this character. He is also an actor who possesses a certain charm, particularly in his eyes. But that charm is not initially evident, it must be discovered gradually.

Cineaste: Does Diego represent a somewhat stereotypical loca?

Gutierrez Alea: No, no. He's definitely not a stereotype. Diego is not really even a loca. The equivalent in English of loca is 'queen' - a gay who expresses himself in a very extroverted, very spectacular manner, who flaunts his homosexuality. His homosexuality is at the center of his social being. Diego, on the other hand, is a gay who has other concerns. He is a refined and cultivated man who is relatively mature, and he conducts himself as a normal person. But, of course, as he says, he likes men.

Now, it is true that at certain times he does conduct himself in a slightly effeminate way. For example, at the beginning of the film, when the characters are in the Coppelia Ice Cream Parlor, Diego conducts himself in an ostentatious way because he is committed to conquering that young man. But, afterwards, little by little, his conduct becomes more sober. In other words, he's definitely not a stereotype.

Cineaste: Would you describe your approach to working with the actors and with your long-time cinematographer, Mario Garcia Joya? Gutierrez Alea: When it comes to the mise-en-scene, the actor is the most difficult and the most important element - the element the director must be most careful about. I have always tried to create a mise-en-scene that functions around the actor so that he feels comfortable and his acting feels natural and organic. My point of departure is always improvisation. We select the key scenes that will define the characters, and those are the only scenes we rehearse. I think that if the actor can capture his character by rehearsing a key scene, he will be able to interpret this character coherently in any other dramatic situation.

I am also careful not to subject actors to rigorously pre-planned movements that would make them dependent on the camera. Many times an actor becomes uncomfortable if he feels he cannot deviate so much as a single millimeter in his movements. So we always try to create a mise-en-scene where the camera is subordinated to the actors. Mayito [Mario Garcia Joya] has played a key role in this. Over the many years that Mayito and I have worked together, we have developed a style of work characterized by mutual comprehension. Our stylistic approach has always been to have the camera function in relation to the players, their situation, and their movements. This is what gives a very fluid dimension to our mise-en-scene.

Mayito uses the hand-held camera a lot. His ability is so extraordinary that it is frequently very difficult to believe that a scene was shot with a hand-held camera. His camera is very steady. In addition, Mayito uses some devices that he has invented. For instance, he or an assistant places a rod underneath the camera when it must be stationary, and that rod is removed when the camera must begin to move and follow a character. His inventions work marvelously. You see a tremendous fluidity in these different mises-en-scene. I would go so far as to say that the fluidity is even more perfect than if he had used a Steadicam, because when a Steadicam is used the camera floats a bit. Mayito, though, can keep his moving camera perfectly stable.

These kinds of devices are part of an esthetic perspective, but they have also been invented because of our limited resources. We cannot use the kinds of sophisticated equipment that characterize big-budget productions. All this has instilled in us a spirit of invention that overcomes our production problems.

Cineaste: In Senel Paz's short story, the protagonist's introspection really stands out. Is your occasional use of voice-over narration an attempt to transfer this aspect of Paz's short story into cinematic terms?

Gutierrez Alea: We found this the best way to handle some sequences. But we did not do this because of any need to be faithful to the original short story. We changed the original story.

Cineaste: Who wrote the script for the film, and why did the screenwriters invent Nancy, who does not appear in the short story?

Gutierrez Alea: Senel wrote the script, but he always worked with me. He would go and write the scenes after we had discussed them. The entire process of scriptwriting was a collaborative effort, although he did the actual writing.

Some things - the character Nancy, for example - were Senel's invention. The creation of Nancy was a fantastic idea because we felt the necessity to make the relationship between the two men more complex. That relationship could not remain as linear as it was in the short story, and we felt that an additional character could help us plumb the depths of that relationship. Senel had already created this character in a previous film called Adorable Lies, and it occurred to him to transfer her to this film - the same character with exactly the same name - but in this different dramatic situation - namely, as Diego's friend.

Cineaste: I find the character Miguel to be very dogmatic, and close- minded. He also seems rather sketchy in comparison to the two protagonists.

Gutierrez Alea: I agree that the character is somewhat schematic. We didn't feel the need to develop him any further. After all, since he is a supporting character, he should be drawn clearly. It seemed to me that he could be sufficiently characterized just as he is - in black and white - a character who is a symbol more than anything else.

Cineaste: Does one see in the film, as exemplified in the figure of Miguel, the Cuban Communists' fear of things foreign - foreign ideologies, foreign ideas, foreign art?

Gutierrez Alea: I don't think that's in the film either explicitly or implicitly. Something different is in the film. It is true that a denunciatory and violent extremism arose in the very early stages of the Revolution. It got to the point that a definite effort did exist to prevent or diminish manifestations of foreign culture.

For example, even in music, the most abstract art form, there was a pronounced prejudice - namely, against Anglo-Saxon music. I remember, for example, that although the music of the Beatles was not banned, it was neither played nor listened to. Listening to that music was considered a sign of ideological weakness. But this occurred in the very early years of the Revolution. This was not the case in the period when the film is set. By then the Revolution had reached a more mature stage.

Cineaste: What about the case of the famous political novel Conversation in the Cathedral written by the rightist Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa? Diego uses this book to entice David because it's unavailable in Cuba.

Gutierrez Alea: The problem with the book is not that it's foreign but rather that its author is a rightist. This book, in fact, does interest us because it's a Latin American novel. Here in Cuba [the publishing house] Casa de las Americas promotes Latin American literature. But Vargas Llosa is not promoted because he acted in a very militant and aggressive way against the Revolution. Therefore, he is considered an enemy. That does not mean we do not consider him to be a great author.

Cineaste: Would you comment on your use of the poster for Some Like It Hot?

Gutierrez Alea: At the end of the film, there is a homage to Some Like It Hot. At the end of the American film, you will remember, Jack Lemmon says to Joe E. Brown, "But I'm not a woman." And Brown answers, "Well, nobody's perfect." In our film we turn this around a little - "Too bad you're not gay," with the answer being, "No one is perfect." As for the poster, we wanted to set up an allusion to Some Like It Hot early on in our film.

Cineaste: One of the central themes of the film is the question of Cuban identity. Would you comment on the Cuban altar in Diego's house and the film's use of Cuban music?

Gutierrez Alea: That altar, which was in the short story, defines Diego's personality very well. Diego is enamored of Cuban culture. This aspect of his personality makes the ending of the film - when he must abandon his country because he cannot live out his potential fully - all the more dramatic.

As for the music, I have always had a particular enthusiasm for Cuban music. It's always seemed to me that Cuban music displays extraordinary qualities, many of them unheralded. The music of Ignacio Cervantes and of other Cuban musicians from the last century is virtually unknown. Nevertheless, that music possesses excellent quality and great richness. Strawberry and Chocolate offered us the opportunity to use some of this music, specifically in a scene where the two men are listening to a pair of dances by Cervantes, "Goodby to Cuba" and "Lost Illusions." The nature of these musical pieces, as well as their titles, make them very well suited to the dramatic situation we wanted to develop.

Cineaste: Would you specifically relate Cervantes's "Lost Illusions" to your thematic concern of lost illusions?

Gutierrez Alea: In one scene, the protagonists are listening to this music. They are both enjoying the music, and Diego is enjoying the other man's presence. David starts to feel uncomfortable because of Diego's glances and communicates that to Diego. As they are talking about the music, Diego says to David, "That's called lost illusions." In other words, the lost illusions refer to Diego's illusions concerning David.

Of course, the theme of lost illusions appears in a more general sense. Diego has also lost his illusions as regards the Revolution. He had wanted to be a schoolteacher. He had participated in the literacy campaign, and he had been abundantly enthusiastic about the Revolution. Then the Revolution treated him badly and marginalized him.

Cineaste: One of your objectives in this film seems to be to pay homage to "Cubanness." There is an effort to recuperate the figure of Lezama Lima, to recuperate little-known Cuban music, and to recuperate a beautiful and decadent Havana, a Havana that will continue to exist for who knows how much longer.

Gutierrez Alea: Exactly. This is all dictated by an interior and spiritual need that I feel. As for Lezama, I could just as well have chosen another figure from our literary history. The figure of Lezama acquires a symbolic status because of his stature and the fact that his novel, Paradise, had been censured at one time.

Cineaste: I understand that it can now be readily purchased in Cuba.

Gutierrez Alea: Well, there are hardly any books available for purchase now. They'll have to bring out a new edition. But let me say this - his book had never been censored; pages were not removed from it. What happened was that after the book was published, the entire printing was withdrawn from circulation because the book contained a chapter with references to homosexuality. Such a repressive action was idiotic. Later, however, the book did circulate freely.

Cineaste: By paying homage to Lezama, do you want to recuperate him for mainstream - nongay - Cuban culture because he was a gay writer? Gutierrez Alea: Actually, the film doesn't recuperate Lezama, because he is already recuperated. He has an extraordinary reputation. The film does pay very just homage to him - not because he was a gay writer, or part of a gay culture, or a writer who focused exclusively on gay culture - but because he was an author of universal stature who had at one time suffered discrimination.

Cineaste: Does Diego's line of dialog - "How much we need another voice!" -allude to Fidel Castro's vast political power and the possible necessity of further democratizing the Cuban political system?

Gutierrez Alea: [Chuckles] Well, it seems obvious, doesn't it? Of course, that line is said as a joke, but a joke that contains a great measure of truth. Cineaste: On December 10, 1993, at the closing ceremony of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana, Strawberry and Chocolate walked away with most of the top prizes. Afterwards, in the Palace of the Revolution, Fidel Castro held a reception for festival guests featuring Strawberry and Chocolate ice cream served together for dessert. Is this the Comandante en Jefe's way of saluting your film and of signaling an attitude of greater tolerance in his government?

Gutierrez Alea: I don't remember that dessert being served.

Cineaste: I was a guest at the reception and that's the dessert I was served.

Gutierrez Alea: Really? Cineaste: You didn't know?

Gutierrez Alea: No. [Chuckles] It was probably just a way to celebrate the prize for a film called Strawberry and Chocolate. That night he [Castro] invited the actors and me for a drink with him. As we chatted, we realized that he had not yet seen the film. Jorge [Perugorria] made a joke that alluded to something in the film, and he did not understand it. If he had seen the film, the joke would have been very obvious. In fact, he told us that he had not had time to view the film yet, but that he was going to see it. He did see it later, but he hasn't expressed any opinion about it.

Cineaste: I understand that Strawberry and Chocolate has broken box office records. Why has the film had such social resonance in Cuba?

Gutierrez Alea: It opened right after the festival. There were very long lines to see it, and it ran for something like three months in Havana. I think it had that response because it was a well told story with a theme that many people wanted to discuss in public. A theme that up until this time had remained rather marginalized. I'm not referring just to the theme of homosexuality, but rather to the theme of intolerance in general. I think that people really felt a great need to reflect on this, and to reflect on it openly. For these reasons, the film became a sociological phenomenon.

Cineaste: Do you have any idea of the number of Cuban viewers who have seen the film?

Gutierrez Alea: Strawberry and Chocolate may hold the record for the greatest number of Cuban viewers. I don't know. But at any rate, it is the film which has attracted the greatest number of viewers in the shortest period of time.

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