Strawberry and Chocolate

            Strawberry and Chocolate by Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio

            In Strawberry and Chocolate David the main character suffers a terrible heartbreak from his fiancée who leaves him for another man. David ends up sitting in a park sulking and thinking about the events that led him to that moment and he suddenly meets a  gay man named Diego who offers David a signed book that interests him if he would come over his house. While there David finds Diego hitting on him and spills coffee on his shirt, after removing it David becomes flustered and he leaves Diego’s house in a hurry.

            Miguel, David’s roommate at the university convinces David to return to Diego’s house to gather evidence against him for his many subversive activities. David and Diego over time begin to form a friendship even though David gathers evidence of Diego’s subversive activities and items. Diego tries to expand David’s thinking to get him to see more than just the communist dogma that they teach him at university and David at the same time tries to convince him to change himself to fit better into society.

            During their time together David also starts a relationship with Nancy the building’s head of the revolutionary committee. She is responsible for reporting people who are being subversive but at the same time she spends time with Diego and often purchases illegal products herself. David falls in love with Nancy and  he tells Diego when they meet up again after spending some time apart. Diego is happy for David but announces that he must leave Havana because he is being kicked out of the country. David is saddened and he embraces Diego bringing him joy as he only wanted a hug from him the whole time and the both are glad to have encountered such a great friendship.

            The theme of Strawberry and Chocolate would probably be sexual politics. The film does a good job of tricking us at the beginning to assume that Diego’s seduction of David was purely physical. But as the film progresses Diego is more interested with politics, literature and art than sex with David. He opens his mind culturally and slowly chips away at the rigid formulaic dogma that had been implanted in David’s mind. He reveals himself later to be a curious young man who has learned to take in new experiences, the hunger for knowledge and to criticize his society as a means of helping to empower it and bring about change.

            I really enjoyed this movie as I have never seen a film from Cuba and I found it really interesting how the directors were allowed to get away with so much pointed criticism at their government all the while escaping the government censors. It is great when an established artist can look back on the their society and create a work that both criticizes it and empower it to create positive change just as Diego suggested to David in the movie.