Monday, September 19, 2011

Cuba: Island of Music

While it’s hardly a definitive story of whether the country or its musical tradition, there’s an infectious charm to  this documentary thanks in large part to the enthusiasm of director/host Gary Keys. It’s a patchwork portrait, with the camera jumping all over the place as it gets distracted by the locations, but instead of making you dizzy the jumpy editing seems to reflect the way any tourist would react to seeing a country that most Americans are forbidden to visit thanks to some antiquated embargo. And if Keys seems to concentrate a bit too much on the shapely curves of the female population, so what? The pulsating rhythm of the music makes their gyrating hips look like art.

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