(Cuba, 84 min.)
Written and directed by Rudy Mora
Starring:
Olo Tomayo, Carolina Fernández, Liliana Sosa, Ernesto Escalona, Laura de la Uz,
Larisa Vega, Manuel Porto
I’ve never quite seen something like And Nevertheless (Y, sin
embargo). It’s the first and only Cuban musical that I’ve ever seen, but
that’s not quite what makes the film an anomaly. And Nevertheless, which tells of a group of students that embarks
on a hunt to find a flying saucer when their classmate Lapatun (Olo Tomayo)
cites a UFO as his reason for being late to an exam, feels like a kids’ movie
for grown-ups. It’s closest companion might be Moonrise Kingdom, but that’s a bit of a stretch, since Sam and Suzy
never broke into song during their coming of age adventure.
Laputun’s farfetched fish story evolves into an Aesop’s fable when his comrades Shafin (Liliana Sosa) and Peco (Ernesto Escalona) make a treasure hunt for the flying saucer. The students band together to prove to their grumpy principal (Larisa Vega) that kids’ don’t always have their heads in the clouds. Their whimsical search encounters all sorts of characters who help them with their journey, especially an old vagrant named Methuselah (Manuel Porto), and add to their proof that Laputun didn’t tell such a tall tale after all.
Writer/director Rudy Mora makes And Nevertheless a unique experience by portraying the story in
some kind of dream place between a child’s imagination and the real world.
Colours bounce off the screen, make-believe trumps all, and everyone sings. The
songs in And Nevertheless aren’t so
much musical numbers as an extension of childish innocence—it’s more fun to
sing than it is to speak, isn’t it?—and the tunes carry a playful melody akin
to the kids’ chorus of songs in Where the
Wild Things Are, which brought a smile through its soundtrack filled with lively
untrained voices. The elders of the cast join in for the occasional song,
including a fine ballad by veteran Cuban actress Elsinda Núñez, but most of the
play is handed over to the kids. The young cast carries the film well,
especially Sosa as Shafin, and the adult performers in the film share the
youthful vibe with the same spirit as their co-stars. And Nevertheless is family-friendly fun both onscreen and off.
Even a moviegoer like me, who normally cringes at anything
involving children and film, could not help but be won over by the harmless
playfulness of And Nevertheless. While
And Nevertheless certainly isn’t a
kids’ movie, it’s sure to bring out the kid in everyone with its innocuous
charm. It’s playtime with subtitles.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
And Nevertheless screened in Ottawa as part of the CFI’s Latin
American Film Festival.
