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Even though this by no means is a bad movie to watch, it still is one, that I'm sure, works out better if you are Cuban yourself or at least know something about its history, or are interested in its culture.

For outsiders it's not always that great or interesting of a movie to watch. It chronicles the life and in particular the love life of 3 different women named Lucía, during 3 historically important Cuban time periods. This is normally the sort of stuff you expect to see in a big, overblown epic movie and this movie also definitely tries to be that way. But no, it's Cuban, so that means they had less money and less experience to come up with a sweeping epic movie. It still succeeds in parts and I can definitely appreciate the effort but overall the movie is a bit too lacking with its stories and characters to make a real big impression.

Basically it is the story of the first Lucía that still remains the best and most interesting one to watch. It's set during the Cuban war of independence, in 1895, in which the Cubans fought against the Spanish. This is really where most of the movie its excitement comes from and therefore it also really is the most interesting story to follow. It even has some pretty impressive battle sequences in it, toward its end.

The second story had all the potential of becoming a good and politically interesting one but the movie never really goes deep enough with its story. It's certainly lacking a bit of bite and the main character besides never really comes across as an interesting or likable enough one.

And the third story...well, I don't even really know what the whole point of it was. At least the previous 2 stories still had a strong message and morale in it, while the third movie only slightly seems to attempt this, without succeeding much really. It's definitely the most redundant story of the 3 but luckily it's also the shortest one, I believe.

The movie is a bit awkwardly put together, with its directing approach, acting and overall storytelling. Or perhaps this maybe is not fair to say and you should instead say that they attempted to do this movie in their own way, by Cubans, for Cubans.

And really, it's still a quite maintaining movie, especially if you are Cuban yourself or are really into Cuba and its history and culture. And even while I'm not, I could still definitely appreciate this movie for what it achieved and for what it attempted to be and do.

7/10

About Frank Veenstra

Watches movies...writes about them...and that's it for now.
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