Daisy Granados Movies

Juan Carlos Cremata's comic look at how the Cuban government affects its citizens, Nada + (Nothing More), is a film about a female postal worker. Thais Valdes plays the woman who dreams of living with her mother and father in Miami while dealing with her horrible boss (Daisy Granados). She livens up her existence by romantically responding to the correspondence she is supposed to deliver. Nothing More was screened during the Director's Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

A wealth of romantic and familial complications face a musician en route to Cuba in the comedy Cuarteto de la Habana. Walther (Ernesto Alterio) is a Spanish jazz musician who gets word from a woman in Havana named Lita (Mirtha Ibarra) that she is his mother, whom he hasn't seen since he was a baby. Walther, excited by the prospect of a family reunion, catches a flight to Cuba, where he meets Segis (Javier Camara), a man who is soon to marry Diana (Laura Ramos). When Walther meets Diana, it's love at first sight, but it turns out there's a hitch -- Diana is Lita's daughter, and though her father was not Walther's father, being half-siblings is still enough to throw a serious spanner into the works. Director Fernando Colomo previously received acclaim for his film The Butterfly Effect. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A group of children look at a billowy cloud above and seek to interpret it. To some, the cloud can only be an elephant, but to the others it can only be a bicycle. For those who are convinced that their view of the world is the only correct one comes this gentle Cuban fable set within a small community upon a tiny island that reminds us that the true meaning of anything is in the eye of the beholder. It all begins when an ex-convict returns to the community bearing gifts: an ancient projector and a silent version of Robin Hood. Never having seen a film before, the peasants are thrilled. Even the priest and the schoolteacher are impressed. The villagers cannot get enough of the film, but after a few viewings, a strange thing begins to happen. Suddenly the exciting adventure begins taking on greater significance to the community, which feels repressed by the island's big landowner; they begin to see the film as a serious political allegory demonstrating how the oppressed can successfully rise up against their avaricious oppressors. Inspired by Robin's daring they stage a colorful revolution. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Andy (Orlando Urdaneta) lives in Cuba, and would like to emigrate to the U.S. He has ideas about the prosperity of life there, and doesn't fully appreciate the pleasant life he has in Havana, where children are able safely to play on the street. By contrast, Ruben (Omar Moynello) lives in Union City, New Jersey, and thinks fondly of the old days in Cuba. His neighborhood is populated by druggies, thieves, transvestites, and every kind of lowlife imaginable. Also, it is very cold in New Jersey. One might imagine that it was a heavy-handed paean to the current regime in Cuba, and a critique of those who have left it, and of the U.S. To a certain extent it is, but in the eyes of at least one reviewer, the film also serves as a hymn to Cuba and Cuban-ness, no matter where its people live. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Cuba has never been regarded as a cinematic capital, thus it's a bit offputting to find so accomplished a film as Plaff! emerging from Castro-land. Deliberately kaleidescopic, with scenes edited out of sequence, the film involves a superstitious woman at odds with her science-oriented daughter-in-law. When the younger woman threatens the older one's complacent belief in portents and talismans, the older one plots the younger's demise. The film maps the older lady's increasing withdrawal from all vestiges of reality--hence the film's full title, Plaff! Or Too Afraid of Life (Desmasiado Miedo A La Vida, O Plaff) Director Juan Carlos Tobio also cowrote the stream-of-consciousness screenplay for this ramschackle but irresistible film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When the Brazilian government of the leftist president Goulart was overthrown by right-wing military men in 1964, the president's supporters and those who could be assumed to support him were either rounded up and imprisoned, or were harassed in some other way. In this drama, based on a play by Dias Gomes, Sergio is a writer and journalist with known left-wing affiliations. Thanks to his job at the newspaper, he got early word of the suppression and went into hiding at a friend's small apartment. However, he did not have a chance to notify his friend. When the man comes to his little apartment with a mistress (that is what he got it for), he is shocked to find Sergio in residence. Later, Sergio and his wife are reunited at the hiding place, and he must come to grips with his lack of seriousness about his revolutionary affiliations at the same time he and his wife confront the growing rift between them. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this weakly plotted drama about the gradual deterioration of a psychiatrist, Cuban director Pastor Vega has focused on the woman's personal and professional lives, and ignores any political or social undercurrents. Even though Laura Durán (Daisy Granados) is the epitome of a self-confident doctor and loving mother and wife, her stability starts to wobble when she finds out that one of her attractive young female patients is having an affair with her husband. This awareness begins to affect her relationships with everyone in her life, from colleagues to patients, as well as family. Vega has his protagonists deliver introspective monologues in the first half of the film, allowing the viewer more access to the complexities of the personalities involved. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Teresa bears the weight of her world on her shoulders. She works outside the home at a textile factory, participates in a folk-dance troup organized by her fellow workers, tries to keep up with the family's housework, and is a mother to her children. Her very macho husband, an up-and-coming television repairman, is offered a job in a nearby in a school in another town and is inclined to take it. Watching Teresa work doubtless wearies him. The two have arguments and the issue of the husband's affairs comes up. They are nearly reconciled when Teresa asks what he would do if he found out that she, too, had affairs. When he does not answer as she would wish, she leaves him for good. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The first Cuban film made after Fidel Castro's revolution to receive widespread distribution (and acclaim) in the United States, Memories of Underdevelopment is not exactly a broad endorsement of Castro's new Cuba. Its protagonist, Sergio (Sergio Correri) is depicted in the opening scenes as happy to see off his wife and parents and friends; they are fleeing Cuba in the wake of the Bay of Pigs invasion for America. He is skeptical of the ability of the Revolution to make a real change in Cuban society, observing that it is only the latest passion for an ever-changing society. Although Sergio's family furniture business has been taken over by the state, he still has a modest income as the landlord of several apartment buildings. He spends much of his time observing, either by walking the streets of Havana or using his telescope to spy on others from the safety of his apartment balcony. His passion is women, and in Elena (Daisy Granados), he finds an especially attractive object of desire. Her lack of experience excites him, but it almost proves his undoing when he decides to move on to other prey and Elena's family accuses him at a public trial of seducing and raping her. Acquitted and temporarily chastened, Sergio muses on what a new crisis, the discovery of Soviet missile installations by the United States, will mean for his island and his future. Filmmaker Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's next widely distributed film, 1994's Strawberry and Chocolate, was even more critical of the Castro government, focusing on its persecution of homosexuals. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi