Rosa la China

The 1950s in Havana. The criminal Santiago Ordenez, better known as Dulzura, is the owner of the most notorious illegal gambling den in the city. Shady deals with the police give him the necessary protection. Rosa, a singer in the club and Dulzura’s lover, two-times with the handsome young Marco, who works in the gambling den. Marco’s sister Laura in turn is involved in a relationship with a local politician. While the romantic vicissitudes start (and end), political relations start to shift and the Cuban population is preparing for a revolution, that will have a massive impact on Dulzura’s nightclub. Valeria Sarmiento, whose documentaries and features generally have a more thoughtful and serious undertone, has used a much lighter approach to paint a colourful and vital picture of love, betrayal and civil unrest in pre-communist Cuba. A labyrinth of mutual dependence that is shaped by a cooperation between native Cubans and Cuban exiles, and that forms a palette of male-female relationships that have changed less in 50 years than we might be led to think. The film, that was screened in 2002 at the festivals of Venice and Toronto, also has echoes of Ernesto Lecuona’s classic ‘zarzuela’.