Bitter Sugar (1996)
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1996 Ben Hoffman
Writer-Director Leon Ichaso, who came to the U.S. when he was 14-years-old, says "Every character in the film is a composite of different people. This is the story of many people in Cuba," . Maybe it is and maybe it is not.
BITTER SUGAR is an unrelenting attack on Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Anyone who believed that the revolution was viable, that Castro was for the people, was a dupe. The film's propaganda never lets up, never mentions any of the harm that our own country has visited on Cuba when 5 of our presidents have continued the unabated onslaught on this tiny island in the Caribbean with embargoes and Radio broadcasts to the island long after Castro had stopped trying to bring the revolution to Central and South America.
This is not to say that the condition of the people is not bad. Nor do I contend that Castro is not a dictator. But a film that wants to be fair should mention the embargoes we have visited on Cuba so that no country, much less a tiny one, could survive, and then we say, "Look what Castro has done to his people." No mention is made that millions of people in Cuba still admire, rightly or wrongly, Castro; that illiteracy has been all but wiped out.
What the film's main theme is that "everyone" wants to leave Cuba and go to Miami. No mention is made that Miami is THE most dangerous city in the U.S. It is presented as if it were Heaven.
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