This week in class we watched Sara Gomez’s De Cierta Manera which follows the relationship between educated school teacher Yolanda, and Mario, a factory worker, living in 1970s post-revolutionary Cuba. The relationship between Yolanda and Mario exhibits the attitudes of men and women living in post-revolutionary cuba while still dealing with the consequences of patriarchy and misogyny in the family sphere. The relationship between Yolanda and Mario is comparable to the relationship of Sergio and Elena in Memorias del subdesarrollo (1968). Although both men in these films model the machista attitudes in Latin American society, Yolanda and Elena are very different women. Yolanda is a college-level educated woman, who works as a school teacher. It is safe to say that she does not live with her family as she has moved locations to teach. She even says it herself multiple times in the film, yo soy independiente. Yolanda is a much more independent woman than Elena, which ultimately impacts their relationship with men. Elena is atleast a few years younger than Yolanda, she is not college educated and she also has no job, thus no source of income. Additionally she lives with her family, unlike Yolanda. It is clear that because of these circumstances their relationships with their significant others is different; Elena is much more submissive to Sergio than Yolanda is to Mario. Throughout Memorias del subdesarrollo Elena looks uncomfortable and has uncomfortable body language when she is around Sergio, aside from mentioning that her and Sergio have a much bigger age gap than Yolanda and Mario. Additionally, Elena first agrees to see Sergio under the promise that he can help her find a job as an actress; Elena and Sergio are not equals, while Yolanda and Mario act more like equals; Yolanda stands her ground to Mario, telling him she will remain independent. She is not afraid of speaking to him directly; she even mocks the way Mario speaks towards his male friends. Yolanda is clearly more comfortable around her partner than Elena is, because of their different levels of independence and self-mobility. Additionally, both films use styles of fiction and documentary mixed together, as mentioned in the Ruby Rich article-”Cuban cinema has been widely, and rightly, acclaimed for its ability to invent new formal strategies, most notably the breakdown of documentary and fiction distinctions to arrive at an integrated style capable at once of unmasking the realism of traditional narrative and the verisimilitude of documentary.” This is clearly seen in both films, as they both include sequences with scripted scenes and unscripted scenes, as well as archival news footage and B-roll.