text: I caught this Cuban film at at an arthouse film club. It was shown shortly after the magisterial 1935 Silly Symphony cartoon where the Isle of Symphony is reconciled with the Isle of Jazz. What with the recently deceased Ruben Gonzalez piped through speakers in this old cinema-ballroom and a Cuban flag hanging from peeling stucco rocaille motifs, the scene was set for a riproaring celebration of engaged filmmaking and synchronised hissing at the idiocies of Helms-Burton. But then the film started. And the cinema's peeling paint gradually became more interesting than the shoddy mess on-screen.<br /><br />The storyline of Nada Mas promises much. Carla is a bored envelope-stamper at a Cuban post office. Her only escape from an altogether humdrum existence is to purloin letters and rewrite them, transforming basic interpersonal grunts into Brontëan outbursts of breathless emotion. Cue numerous shots of photogenic Cubans gushing with joy, grief, pity, terror and the like.<br /><br />The problem is that the simplicity of the narrative is marred by endless excursions into film-school artiness, latino caricature, Marx brothers slapstick and even - during a particularly underwhelming editing trick - the celluloid scratching of a schoolkid defacement onto a character's face.<br /><br />Unidimensional characters abound. Cunda, the boss at the post office, is a humourless dominatrix-nosferatu. Her boss-eyed accomplice, Concha, variously points fingers, eavesdrops and screeches. Cesar, the metalhead dolt and romantic interest, reveals hidden writing talent when Carla departs for Miami. A chase scene (in oh-so-hilarious fast-forward) is thrown in for good measure. All this would be fine in a Mortadello and Filemon comic strip, but in a black-and-white zero-FX flick with highbrow pretensions, ahem.<br /><br />Nada Mas attempts to straddle the stile somewhere between the 'quirky-heroine-matchmakes-strangers' of Amelie and the 'poetry-as-great-redeemer' theme of Il Postino. Like Amelie, its protagonist is an eccentric single white female who combats impending spinsterdom by trying to bring magic into the lives of strangers. And like Il Postino, the film does not flinch from sustained recitals of poetry and a postman on a bicycle takes a romantic lead. Unfortunately, Nada Mas fails to capture the lushness and transcendence of either film.<br /><br />There are two things that might merit watching this film in a late-night TV stupor. The first is the opening overhead shot of Carla on a checker-tiled floor, which cuts to the crossword puzzle she is working on. The second is to see Nada Mas as a cautionary example: our post Buena Vista Social Club obsession with Cuban artistic output can often blinker us into accepting any dross that features a bongo on the soundtrack. This film should not have merited a global release - films such as Waiting List and Guantanamera cover similar thematic territory far more successfully.