The Lost City

Plot synopsis:
Fico Fellove is the owner of El Tropico, a swank nightclub in the late 1950s. Fico lives for his family and his music, but the harsh realities of Batista's dictatorial regime threaten to destroy both. His brother Ricardo becomes a revolutionary and his other brother Luis joins the democratic opposition while his father Federico, a well-respected university professor, believes that Batista should be replaced by constitutional, peacefull means.
When Ricardo is arrested for anti-regime activities and threatened with execution, Fico calls upon an old prep school friend, now a police captain, for help. Due to the intercession of Captain Castel, Ricardo is released from jail. Although Fico suggests that Ricardo should go to Miami or New York City for a while, Ricardo refuses and instead joins a communist rebel band headed by Che Guevara.
In addition to political intrigue, Fico is also approached by Meyer Lansky (Dustin Hoffman), a high-ranking member of New York's Genovese crime family, who wishes to open up a gambling room at El Tropico. Fico, however, intends for his club to remain a place of music and turns down the offer. When a bomb later explodes at the club, killing the club’s star entertainer (who was also Fico’s love), Fico assumes that Lansky is behind it. However, in the increasingly unsettled climate, he cannot be certain.
Luis soon becomes connected with the plot to seize the presidential palace, kill Batista, and restore democracy to Cuba. The plot fails and most of the attackers are killed. Luis escapes but is killed later by Batista’s secret police. At the urging of his mother, Fico tries to cheer up Luis’ distraught widow Aurora (Inés Sastre). Fico and Aurora begin a relationship and fall in love, but events intervene: the Communists seize the power after Batista flees the country. Fidel Castro declares there will be no elections and Che Guevara oversees the arrests and summary execution of all those who those thought to have supported the Batista regime. Among those arrested is Captain Castel. Fico seeks out his brother Ricardo, now a high-ranking officer in the new regime, for help. Despite Castel's having saved his life, Ricardo does nothing to prevent Castel’s execution.
Ricardo, who had otherwise distanced himself from his family, later visits his uncle Donoso (Richard Bradford), a tobacco farmer and cigar maker. Donoso feels that while Castro may be in power now, “the land endures” and he says that the farm would one day pass to Ricardo. Ricardo, however, announces that the reason for his visit is to appropriate the farm for the state. In a fit of anger, Donoso has a heart attack and dies. Ricardo, overcome by grief, attends the funeral and shortly after commits suicide.
The revolution also has its effects on Fico’s club. The musician’s union, now controlled by Castro, has declared the saxophone to be an imperialist instrument and forbids its use. The club is eventually shut down on a flimsy pretext. After a chance meeting with Castro, Aurora is declared Revolutionary Widow of the Year and begins to work for the State. This causes Fico and Aurora to break apart.
Seeing the family torn apart and decimated by the revolution, Fico’s parents beg him to leave Cuba and start a new family. Reluctantly, Fico prepares to leave, procuring exit visas for himself and Aurora. In a last chance to convince her to leave, Fico barges in on a reception for revolutionary leaders and Soviet Bloc ambassadors but Aurora refuses to go. After a last toast to a free and democratic Cuba, Fico leaves the reception. He says his goodbyes to his parents (receiving his father’s prized pocket watch) and leaves Cuba. At the airport, most of his money and possessions (including his father’s watch) are confiscated.
Fico begins a new life in New York. By working as a dishwasher and piano player at a Cuban club, he hopes to save enough money to bring the remaining members of his family to America. He again meets Meyer Lansky, who offers Fico a Cuban nightclub in Las Vegas. Fico again refuses. While cleaning up one night, he has another meeting with Aurora, who is in New York as part of a Cuban delegation to the United Nations. He now realizes that Aurora is like Cuba: beautiful, alluring, but ultimately damaged and unattainable. He decides now that his cause is to build a new life until he can return to the city he lost. Fico recites a poem by Cuban nationalist Father José Martí and opens a new nightclub in New York.

Tags: violence, flashback

Review:
The guy playing the trumpet at the beginning and end of the movie was superb.It gives an overall picture of the history from that period in the island nation and without being documentary it respects the motives and shortcomings of any historical process such as this one.Thanks Andy for this movie, and keep up the good work..
I think that for those who do not know what happened in Cuba during the revolution, this movie is a great film to watch (no matter what the critics believe).
Critics all over have trashed this movie on account on its politics, angry at the way García has depicted Che Guevara as the real murderer he was, at the way he has portrayed the profound injustices and oppression of Fidel Castro's regime, at the way it does not conform to the sympathetic view Hollywood has always had about the Cuban Revolution.
It's an extremely entertaining film that uses its modest resources with great care to give us a dignified, sincere, notably balanced and very emotional document of the terrible experience of the Cuban people.
As a Cuban Americans living in the USA since 1960, due to Castro's revolutions in Cuba, we are very proud of this movie and Andy Garcia's work and effort.
We highly recommend this film; because for the first time that there is finally a movie that depicts the reality of Castro's revolution.
The film does justice to every Cuban-American out there who has wanted the true story of his/her country's history to be told.
I heard that Garcia wanted to direct this movie for a long time, and it wasn't until recently that he finally acquired the means to do so.
I think that in making this movie, Garcia let his personal bias and feelings compromise his artistic integrity, and gave birth to an egotistical, narrow-minded infatuation with his own view on things.
He confused the story he wanted to tell with his own ego-driven diatribe.While he might be entitled to be enraged, biased and personally touched by certain events that affected him and his family, as a director he let that alone dictate the course of his own creation, without any thought of how the public, who perhaps is not familiar with the events portrayed in the movie, would assimilate and digest the story he so dismally tries to get across.The one bright spot in this mess, was Ines Sastre.
This Cuba, one of poor, uneducated peasants that were in virtual slavery on sugar and tobacco plantations and women who sold themselves to tourists, is seen only in Mikhail Kalatozov's Soy Cuba, which will be released in a deluxe edition this month.The movie worth watching for Garcia's performance and the performances of Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray, and Elizabeth Peña, as well as some great Afro-Cuban music.It probably did great box office in Miami..
It even challenges the hero status of Che Guevara.But Andy Garcia's tale of a wealthy family coming apart like this lovely island during the Cuban revolution suffers from the self-indulgence that so often weakens the work of writer/director/producer combos.
I don't think this was my fault; I don't usually have any trouble following a story, even a not-very-well written one.So I blame the script and the editing; the camera work was quite good, although I was hoping for a good peek at Havana of that era, or even this one, but I since found out the film was shot in the Dominican Republic, which isn't going to look much like Cuba, methinks.So, while I can understand why some people gave this film top marks, I am not able to do that for any movie that keeps losing me as consistently as this one did.
Andy Garcia's efforts and love for this movie and Cuba is clearly evident.
However, most had no idea Castro would become a totalitarian dictator who would destroy the island of Cuba.The film's portrayal of what happened to Fico's family was right on the money.
One day someone is going to make a decent film about the Cuban revolution, but in the meantime we will have to put up with half-baked efforts like this and Havana.There is no doubting the earnestness of actor-director Andy Garcia's convictions but what we basically have here is an overlong and rather dull vanity project.
Garcia plays Fico, an affluent nightclub owner who finds his family and life slowly disintegrating in the midst of the events leading up to - and consequences of - Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution.
A family saga that tells about the immense tragedy that came upon the Cuban families from the very inception of the Cuban revolution (like that, with small letters!) The film moves less along a story line than goes from atmosphere to atmosphere, recreating the finest in Cuban culture, gloating in it, in its frivolity but also its sensuality, its violence, but also its tenderness and true love.
Two big lovers of Havana met here: Guillermo Cabrera Infante, the writer obsessed with Havana, specially by night, and Andy Garcia, whose memory of his early childhood's Cuba is so edged in his mind that he couldn't continue living less he did this film.
My friend and I who saw the film are not Cuban or any other iteration of Latin American, and we both thought the movie should have been two hours longer, maybe a series.
A nicely filmed movie that is at best an Andy Garcia Narcissim-fest.
Difficult to follow familial relationships that are centered on the contrast of a privileged family and the plight of the Cuban underclass although you never see the latter.Oh yeah, Dustin Hoffman is in it for 5 minutes and Bill Murray sports some weak one liners in very revealing striped shorts.The use of historical footage returns the viewer to the desperation of 1959 but fails to integrate itself into the general tone of the film.The violent nature of the Baptista regime is explored and the violence of the scenes was appropriate to the story telling.Maybe I just arrived at one minute after six...........
As I wish to visit Cuba if I'll have the chance, I thought of this movie that it would be an interesting introduction to the city of Havana, to its people and to its history.
Apart from that, the general feeling while watching the movie was that probably Andy Garcia had in his mind something like: "hey, I'm the producer, it's my money, so I'll direct it, make the score, and play the leading role!".I noticed other comments about how deep and insightful this movie is.
I've been studying pre-revolution Cuba for months now and I keep coming back to try to watch this movie - visually it's a gorgeous depiction of the place and time.
I think it was just an excuse to vilify Che Guevara (good luck trying to argue that case with other Latin Americans who are not Miami Cubans- if the accusations in the movie were true he would probably not get the respect and love that he does today) and also to mourn the loss of one rich man's nightclub while turning a blind eye to poor, ordinary Cubans who, despite Fidel Castro's harshness, benefited from the Revolution.
Dustin Hoffman's character was completely random.Anytime you have to cut a script in half and you leave in 20 minutes of "falling in love scenes" your priorities to plot are off.The only saving grace to this movie was the music and the scenery.
It starts promising, but at some point you can't take all that anymore.If you like musicals and if you don't want to feel tears by yourself, but rather like when somebody puts eye-drops into your eyes and rubs the obvious under your nose, + make the Cuban revolution + Havana look like an unreal city filled with costumes (not clothes) and have everything as synthetically clean as a freshly built set, but not like real life, then you might enjoy the movie.It's like a child's view...
I loved the music, i swear i have never been romanced by movie scenery before, i do like the reference to "peligro" and El Che. The use of Cuban Spanish was excellent.
OK, so we all know Andy Garcia is a very strong opposer to the Castro regime, a true US *buddy* (as he should be, since it's the country which pretty much gave him everything he has)  therefore his one-sided view of the Cuban Revolution was something that everyone who knows a little bit about him had to expect.
He couldn't have chosen better characters to prove his own point also  a wealthy family whose main source of income was a nightclub (an entertainment for tourists and Americans who owned businesses in Cuba and lived there...the actual Cubans had no access to such places), I mean, OF COURSE they were gonna be hurt by the Revolution.
What makes "The lost city" a terrible movie is the fact that it's cheesy almost to the point of being ridiculous (the love story/all the dialogue/the "sentimental" music played over the "emotional" moments) and the acting is less than stellar  and that is me being nice.
No. Andy Garcia's movie's just simply awful, regardless of how he deals with the Cuban Revolution.
You don't need "The lost city"  go watch Win Wenders' fascinating documentary "Buena Vista Social Club".Hey Andy  I still like you man, better luck next time!.
The praise IMDb raters have given the film for "historical accuracy" has no foundation; it is only an accurate portrayal of the dim or created memories of the upper class of pre-revolution Cuba, fed by the political ideology of the Cuban diaspora.
the film completely ignores 90% of the population of the island and their circumstances prior to 1959, presenting a seriously limited view of Cuba and particularly Havana as a place where wealthy, well-dressed academics and large landowners stay out all night partying, get up at midday to a lovely breakfast at their city home or country manor, and worry about whether or not their personal wealth might be impacted by the crazy political problems around them.
but to say, as Garcia has (and many of the IMDb fans have), that the goal of the film was to show the world what Cuba was really like, and what "la revolution" really did, shows either artistic dishonesty or blindness to reality (willful or otherwise).with writing and directing that started with less of a political agenda, Garcia might have been able to make a pretty good 2 hour movie.
This movie beautifully filmed showing how elegant and educated the people of Cuba were in the 50's, before the country was turned over to the grip of the Castros.
Pride, joy, heritage, music, beauty in nature all are things that are close to Andy Garcia's heart concerning Cuba and he uses "The Lost City" as his vehicle to express how he feels.
Excellent, very true, Andy Garcia has put his heart on this movie and his heart is gold, and we can see he still loves Cuba as much as all the Cubans do.
I salute Andy Garcia and those involved in the film-a generation of Cuban Americans, many of which left Cuba as children, or were born in the United States-that they have been able to recreate pre-revolutionary Cuba and show it so accurately and so lovingly in this movie.
The movie is slow paced, but it is this pace that allows the beauty, the vibrancy, the music, and the sensuality of Pre Revolution Havana seep into once's mind.I truly hope that this film will change the image that the rest of the world has of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara as heroic defenders of the poor and enemies of social injustice.
As I watched this movie my only thought was, "sadness" but not for the so called lost city, but for its author Andy Garcia, He speaks in his movie about the Cuban Revolution and the transitional time between Batista and Castro.
For all of these reasons is that I find this movie, not only bad, but also a carrier of a bias version of the history of Cuban revolution, brought to the screen by a person who was to young to have an opinion of his own about what was going on at the time, and still to this day doesn't understand it..
Although I have several friends who are Cuban exiles, some pro- and some anti-Castro, and despite having SOME knowledge of Cuban life today (having visited Cuba in the late '90s), I will not comment on the historical accuracy or political tone of this film.I'll stick to the acting, casting, and direction, and briefly say that I thought that the cinematography and music were delicious.I feel badly that such an obvious labor of love for Andy Garcia ended up having such poor finish.
A great movie!Anyone who has had to flee communist oppression as I have will understand the deep feelings expressed in this film, whereas those who still believe that Che and Fidel are great romantic figures and that the revolution was the "realization of all the aspirations of the poor and the working classes" will surely hate the film and continue to live in their dreamworld.
I tried to enjoy it and love it, but the music (by Andy Garcia), directing (by Andy Garcia), writing (by Andy Garcia) and editing (don't know, but probably by you-know-who) made the movie feel like it was days long.
One point in film I actually wished it would only be another Hollywood (anti)communist commercial - it would then at least be interesting - as a school case.Is there any worth mentioning how pathetic it looks when you see fat rich family dancing around in beautiful castles around exploited and impoverished Cuba, and then yammering how terrible and unjust the revolution and the loss of freedom is ?!
This film accurately portrays what was going on in Cuba before, during, and after the Cuban revolution.
Andy Garcia has succeeded in writing and directing this historical view of the Cuban revolution.
The movie was filled with Latin music and dance.The hero loses his family, his family's holdings, the love of his life, his night club, his music, and eventually hope for the future.It's too bad that this movie wasn't released before the Elian Gonzales debacle.I don't want to be critical of the movie because it tells an important story that needs to be heard but I think that too much time was spent with pre-Castro Cuba and that this was compensated for by everything after Castro coming fast and furious.I don't think that this told the truth about Che Guerva because if he was shown in the movie, he would have been at the front of the fighting.
I have always liked and respected Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman, and now I have even more reason to do so - their willingness to appear in a "politically incorrect" movie version of the Cuban Revolution.
Bad reviews in the press, but a very interesting and music filled rendition of why Cuba needed a Castro, how Castro failed his own revolution, why the middle class left, and lots of great music , some of it old film of actual stars of the pre-Castro Cuban music scene.I don't understand the bad reviews.
Maybe the intertwined stories were too much for the reviewers to handle: Love of a Family, love of men and women, love of Cuba, Meyer Lansky as a sort of good guy, music, dancing, Batista as a strange, bad guy and Castro as a hero with feet of clay.Additional virtue: Ines Sastre, the woman who plays the wife of Andy Garcia's brother is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen on the screen..
In fact, if Andy could have gotten the financing, I wish he could have made three movies: one about the Fellove family drama, one about the revolution, and one about the love story.
Oh, yeah, in the last movie about Cuba I saw.So what's good about this film?
"Lost City" is at least a seven, just like "I Am Cuba," another beautiful, flawed movie -- but one critics champion, because in that one, Fidel is heroic.
And another thing - I love Bill Murray, but nothing can justify his part in this movie.I also bet that people who liked this movie some much are the same that find Crash (2004) so great.Andy Garcia should stay away from directing..
Andy Garcia did a wonderful job with this movie.
Seems like it would be difficult to achieve, but despite everything that producer / director / actor / composer / caterer / shoe-shiner / kitchen-sink-plumber Andy Garcia gets right in this tale of Havana, Cuba during Fidel Castro's rise to power, this tends to be a boring, cold, distant-feeling affair.I think I have the main problems pegged.
The Lost City is the magnificent brainchild of Andy Garcia who produced, directed and starred in this film set in Havana, Cuba during the late 50s.
Andy Garcia may have a Cuban background, but it is definitely an American (postcard) view of a rosy English speaking Cuba he shows us.
Knowing that Andy Garcia is one of the most anti-Castro people of all, it may seem that "The Lost City" would be staunchly anti-revolution.
Andy Garcia, also the director, plays the scion of a landowning Cuban family caught up in the revolution.
Some family members oppose the revolution, others support it, but everyone wonders how the family will stay together.In a way, it seems like the best part of the movie is actually the music.
Andy Garcia is Cuban, his family escaped Cuba when he was just 5, so he made this project to show us, the not Cubans, what it was all like.
I am reviewing this movie from the perspective of Cuban emigrant and a contemporary of Andy Garcia.