De Cierta Manera, by Cuban director Sara Gomez, is a revolutionary film that portrays realistic themes about post-revolutionary Cuban society. The film tackles many revolutionary themes such as machismo, class, race, labor, gender relations, integration, etc.
There is no successful character in the film. The film intentionally does not give itself a happy ending as is common in Hollywood movies. The purpose of the film is not pleasure, but to teach its audience a lesson and hopefully advance social norms. Although the films protagonists walk off into the sunset in the films end, they are not necessarily successful. Yolanda is clearly shown to be racist, despite espousing liberal ideals to her afro-cuban boyfriend and Mario is treated as lesser by his girlfriend and friends after selling out his friend in an emasculating manner. In an important scene, Yolanda treats a young white schoolboy well, saving him from legal trouble and getting him lunch to avoid his becoming a hoodlum. She goes above and beyond as a teacher to help this boy and is forgiving of his mother and her situation. Later in the movie, however, she berates a black boy’s mother who works harder than Yolanda or the white boy’s mother when the boy does not pass the class. Despite Yolanda’s outspoken views that are allegedly backed up by liberal views, she draws the line at race and is clearly bigoted. When Mario does what his girlfriend wants him to, the power is taken from him so he does the right thing. However, when Mario talks on Santiago he gets little praise from his peers and only little praise from Yolanda’s brother who is clearly racist and does not care about Mario’s well being or understand his perspective. This shows how often we want people to do the “correct” thing, but are not willing to understand their perspective or how it will affect them and instead expect them, especially if they are marginalized, to shut up and do the right thing. So in the end Yolanda does not reward Mario yet expects him to be macho for her showing she does not respect him and she has failed as a teacher. These people are not good revolutionaries as they do not work together so the film acts a cautionary tale to the viewer.
Overall this film is very informative on social norms and cultural expectations and how they disrupt our otherwise perfect idealism or way of life. Sara Gomez creates an educational piece and gives the viewer perspective on their own lives by displaying the lives of other marginalized people. These characters are not bad people, they are just human, and Sara Gomez accurately highlights this in De Cierta Manera.
