Kangamba: A Cuban War Movie
BY ROLANDO PEREZ BETANCOURT

Kangamba, a war movie (yes, a war movie), beyond what one could imagine, was greatly needed.

My insistence on using the term "war movie" is warranted. It’s a genre that often entails a display of arms and fireworks, and without the professionalism can fail to present the human conflict especially when, as in this case, we're talking about reconstructing a geography bestrewed with explosions and infantry combat, in which airplanes, helicopters, tanks, and heavy artillery take part.

Since the beginning of cinema, there have been powerful war films that eventually led to the creation of a real genre and school. Movies with good, bad, heroic, tendentious and falsified films with solid or weak dramatic structures, but almost all of them supported by a fantastic visualization of war.

A hundred years of practice and marketing make it an important genre for the industry. Nevertheless, Kangamba is the first film in Cuban cinematography to fully take on the challenge of presenting a full out drama worthy of the heroic story it tells. It does so with a screenplay of a drama that tells the story of the resistance of a group of Cubans and Angolans who, with little ammunition, and no food or water, held up for days the charge of UNITA troops in the Angola of 1983.

Explosions and weapons are included to add to the drama full of great moments like the scene in the trench where "the pilot" that had been sent "to do his thing," points out the strategic objectives that the Cuban air force should shoot at, especially a sniper that has already taken a few lives. These and other well-filmed scenes, bring back the reality of those days through a credible artistic look at what really happened.

First I would like to draw attention to the great sets of Kangamba, without which the epic battle scenes wouldn’t have been as successful. The movie was filmed on sets in the prairies of Camagüey, although many would swear that it is Angola itself, with buildings typical of the local population that lived together with the Cuban reservists, a town trapped in the tragedy of falling into the hands of UNITA soldiers.

Imaginative and passionate, director Rogelio París knew that many factors had to interweave to make Kangamba the film he intended to as a tribute to those Cubans who took solidarity to its heights in Angola. He did so without allowing heroic fanfare to devour human idiosyncrasies, which are in the end what characterized the ordeal. The script, written together with Jorge Fuentes, follows the footsteps of a wide variety of characters trapped in the conflict. It’s a gallery where everything fits in, from the young man who loses an eye and shortly afterwards wants to continue fighting, to another who is paralyzed by fear in his first mission. Between them, are the two leading roles, Captain Mayito, a fictional character played by Rafael Lahera, and Lieutenant Colonel Lorenzo, in charge of Armando Tomey whose character is based on the figure of Fidencio Gonzalez, Hero of the Republic of Cuba and head of the Cuban troops in Cangamba.

Both Lahera, who delivered an excellent performance in Barrio Cuba, and Tomey are very convincing in their roles. In the case of Lahera, the scriptwriters were overzealous in their eagerness not to present him as the classic hero and to dress him instead with small defects that, although understandable, were a little overdone. In addition, this main character, the thread of the plot, goes missing for a while in the story.

But beyond a few critiques, which are inevitable, Kangamba is a top rate production: moving, full of humanity and good acting. A film that grips you and doesn’t let go, perfectly photographed (you have to see the faces in the trenches, whether waiting for the moment of battle or listening to Fidel’s letter in the most terrible moments), with music suitable for the emotions and times when the uncertainty of what’s yet to come is trapped in an atmosphere of suspense.

It’s good that Kangamba begins to show in theaters around the country and is presented everywhere as a homage to those modest men who saw the face of death and today live among us, in good times and bad times, living normal lives.