I am Cuba ("Soy Cuba")

Director: Mihail Kalatozov
Starring: Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood, Raul Garcia
Year: 1963

An artistic view of the Cuban Revolution, the film traces the different stages of the revolt -- from the poverty and exploitation of pre-Castro Cuba to the student demonstrations to the revolutionaries' resistance in the Sierra Maestra mountains to ultimate victory.

The film was made Soviet filmmaker Mihail Kalotizov ostensibly as a propaganda film, but Kalotizov took advantage of the film's big budget and total cooperation of the nascent Cuban government to make instead an artistic expression filled with iconic images that pushed cinematography to new frontiers. Kalatosov took Eisenstein's montage technique to the other extreme, and built the film around long, almost improbable, continuous shots. One of the most amazing sequences of the film is a shot where the camera starts atop a high-rise, where a group of musicians and bikini-clad women perform, then descends down the side of the building to a crowded swimming pool and finally — without a cut — underwater, where it follows the movements of the swimmers.

Comments: The cinematography is astounding. This film must be seen.

Highly Recommended.