Los Sobrevivientes (1979): An Introduction to Titón & Cuban Film

Over the past year, I have seen many internationals speak up about the conditions, both social and political, of Cuba.

While that is appreciated — and honestly a deserved break from the usual conversations I overhear about the islands’ beautiful resorts and touristic ruins —, for today I would like to shift the conversation into a much under-appreciated genre of Cuban culture: cinema. 

Starting with one of my favorites: Los Sobrevivientes. Los Sobrevivientes is set at the triumph of the Cuban revolution and tells the story of the Orozco’s, an aristocratic family that decides to isolate themselves in their mansion, waiting for the failure of the new government and for a supposed U.S. invasion that never comes. 

The film begins in disarray.

With the establishment of the Castro regime, many of Cuba’s bourgeois decided to take their belongings and set foot elsewhere. While one of the Orozco brothers has decided to do just that, Sebastián Orozco insists on waiting for the return of normalcy within the safety of his estate. We are slowly introduced to the characters of the family, learning about their traditions and customs, giving the viewer a passageway into the lives of the so-called upper class of the time. 

Interestingly, it is these “traditions” and ceremonies of the bourgeoisie class that seem to keep the family hold onto their sanity. Or whatever is left of it.

From the beginning till the end, whether they are celebrating a wedding in the backyard or eating the remains of one of their loved ones (yes, there is cannibalism. Just a content warning), the characters of the movie refuse to lose their grace and manners. The suit stays on, and dinner is still eaten at the proper table, with the proper utensils no matter what. It is these examples of civility that allow them to hold on to their class, distinguishing themselves from the commoners or masses of peasants.

Perhaps Gutiérrez was trying to show how many of these traditions are a mere display of power, or perhaps he just meant to use it as part of the comedic plot.  Regardless, by the end of the movie the family’s bureaucratic absurdities have made the characters turn into barbaric parodies of themselves, showing how complete solitude can lead into a spiral of involution. 

For an hour and forty five minutes viewers are taken on a voyage full of satire, self-destruction, and chaos, ultimately leading to the dissection of class delusions.  Gutiérrez explores what would happen to a society in isolation, a concept that forty-one years later hits painfully close. 

I was about fifteen when I first saw Los Sobrevivientes, at the Havana Film Festival in New York. And while it definitely was not my first encounter with Tomas Guiterrez Alea, it is still my most memorable one.

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Titón as his friends called him, is one of the most important and critically acclaimed Cuban directors and screenwriters. His films gave a look into a Cuba settling to the reign of the Castro regime. Much of Cuban film after the revolution is associated with anti-imperialist and socialist tones which is not wrong per se, but it would be wrong to undermine and misjudge Cuban cinema as mere communist propaganda. 

Los Sobrevivientes is considered responsible for causing a shift in the Cuban film industry, which slowly replaced revolutionary cinema to one with subtler political undertones. Although an avid supporter of Castro, Titón’s work can hardly be called propaganda. He often critiqued many of the struggles that Cubans faced, casting a less romantic eye to a post-Revolutionary society. 

Gutiérrez had described himself as a man that was not against the revolution, bur rather:

A MAN WHO MAKES CRITICISM INSIDE THE REVOLUTION, WHO WANTS TO AMELIORATE THE PROCESS, TO PERFECT IT, BUT NOT TO DESTROY IT.

Previous to entering the film industry, he studied law in the University of Havana, only to move later on to Centro sperimentale di cinematografia (Experimental Film Centre) in Rome. However, he returned to Cuba shortly after Castro’s victory in 1959.

The first decade after the revolution is referred to as Cuban cinema’s Golden Age, partly due to Gutiérrez’s work and that of Humberto Solás, both regarded as the best film directors to ever come out of Cuba. This era includes some of Gutiérrez’s best films, like Death of a Bureaucrat (1966) and Memories of Underdevelopment (1968). 

Much of his work was part of cinematic movements of the 60s and 70s, ones that rejected the Hollywood and European “commercial style” of films and preferred to focus on the potential cinema had to drive social change.

One of the most popular of these movements would be Imperfect Cinema, mostly used from the late 60s to the late 80s and is not only attributed to Cuba but rather all of Latin America. This style consists of mostly rough, grainy, low-quality films. 

Imperfect Cinema is heavily associated with Garcia Espinosa, another great Cuban screenwriter and director, who said that

IMPERFECT CINEMA FINDS A NEW AUDIENCE IN THOSE WHO STRUGGLE, AND IT FINDS ITS THEMES IN THEIR PROBLEMS

Hence, it was known for mostly telling the story from the perspective of the viewer, catching their attention without need for aesthetics. 

Cinema has always been an extremely important part of Cuban history, at least for the Cuba we know now. Previous to Castro’s victory in 1959 education in Cuba had been exclusively for the upper class so most of the population was illiterate. The government decided to invest in different forms of mass media to reach the public, one of which included cinema.  

Titón founded, along with other film directors, the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry), and almost sixty-three years later, the institution still stands, producing film and training new generations of movie directors. 

Los Sobrevivientes is barely the pinnacle of Gutiérrez’s contribution to Cuba and cinema as a whole, and in a country so full of history, perseverance, and culture, I hope that the next conversation I have about it goes beyond vacation sites and brief instagram infographics.  

(Los Sobrevivientes is free to watch on youtube)