STRAWBERRY AND CHOCOLATE

STRAWBERRY AND CHOCOLATE (Directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Jean Carlos Tabio. Starring Jorge Perugorria, Vladimir Cruz, Mirta Ibarra, Francisco Gattorno)

The title refers to flavours of ice-cream, which according to Diego (Jorge Perugorria) is the only thing Cuba still excels in. His arch, anti-revolutionary rhetoric makes him the opposite of the naively idealistic, pro-revolutionary David (Vladimir Cruz). Not only is Diego cynical, cultured and free-thinking, he is homosexual; a conclusion David immediately draws from the fact that Diego chooses the strawberry flavour over the more macho chocolate. But the two potentially antagonistic characters are drawn together (as is always the way in such films) with Diego gently expanding David’s minds, though never quite getting a chance to expand the other parts of his anatomy that he has his eyes on.

Like Kiss Of The Spiderwoman, Strawberry and Chocolate uses a polarised hetero/homo relationship to criticise the strictures of revolutionary society. But, for no apparent reason, the film is more set bound than even the earlier prison drama was, rarely moving out of Diego’s crowded apartment. The male characters are well drawn but the women are misogynistic sketches by comparison, and outside of Cuba its political sub-text is too remote to lend this occasionally charming drama any real weight.