MEMORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT
Based on the novel by Edmundo Desnoes
Leading players
Directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea
HAVANA, 1961. MANY PEOPLE ARE LEAVING THE COUNTRY
She'll have to work over there.
Until she finds someone stupid enough to marry her, that is.
Frankly, she's still good looking.
She'll forget me as soon as she finds an easy life.
I'm the one who's really stupid.
I worked to give her a soft life...
... like a New Yorker, a Parisienne, not an underdeveloped islander.
All those who loved me...
... or nagged me right up to the last moment...
... have already gone
For years I've wanted to find time to write, or keep a diary.
Have I anything to say?
Everything's the same.
All the same.
Suddenly it looks like a set, a cardboard city.
The Bronze Titan.
Cuba, free and independent. Who'd have believed it?
No imperial eagle, but where's the dove Picasso was going to send?
Is comfortable to be a communist millionaire in Paris.
"This humanity has spoken 'enough' and has begun to move."
They won't stop till they get to Miami.
However, everything looks so different today.
Have I changed, or has the city?
The moment of parting.
"Oh, abandoned, like the wharves at dawn.
"Everything about you was like a shipwreck."
- What are you doing? - Can't you see?
What are you reading?
Something trite, frivolous and superficial. "The Best of Everything."
Oh, yes, that film...
Stop looking at me...
...as if I'm some strange insect!
Lets talk.
Whas biting you?
You only talk about insects lately.
Why not?
Aren't we surrounded by insects? Isn't this country falling behind?
I say so, but what do you think?
Why? You've never been interested in my opinions.
You're practising your English lately. I think you want to leave.
Clear off! Leave me alone!
I like you when you become vulgar.
It always excites me...
... when I see you struggle between elegance and vulgarity.
I've been keeping an eye on you for some time now.
You've become rather disgusting lately.
Because I've run out of Yardley's brilliantine...
...and Colgate toothpaste and after-shave lotion.
Those things help a lot, don't they?
Yet you become more attractive every day.
You're more artificial.
I prefer women like you to natural beauty.
I prefer good clothes, good food, make-up, massage.
Thanks to such things you're no longer a slovenly Cuban girl.
I never know whether you're serious or joking.
A little of both.
Go joke to your mother!
I can't stand living here any longer! You stink!
Everything you said was recorded.
Every word. I'll be fun when you hear it played back.
You monster! I'll smash the recorder!
Women look into your eyes as though wishing to be touched by your look.
Such a thing only happens here.
Maybe Italian women stare longer, but no, not like ours.
Havana's like a country town since "El Encanto" burned down.
To think that Havana was "The Paris of the Caribbean."
Thas what tourists and whores called her.
A Tegucigalpa of the Caribbean...
... thas what it looks like today.
Not only because "El Encanto" has gone...
...and the stores are half empty...
... but because of the people.
What does life mean for them?
And what does life mean for me?
But I'm not like them.
They're making the first socialist revolution in America. So what?
They're going back to the jungle, hungry, like the Haitians.
They beat Napoleon, and so?
The worlds most important sugar industry, before the revolution.
Now look what they've made of it.
Times change.
Sergio, is not our own problem.
Is between the Russians and the Americans, nothing to do with us.
I tell you this whole thing will blow up, Sergio.
Whichever of them throws the first punch, we'll catch it.
Why? Because we're a tiny, little island.
You'll catch the punch, because I won't be here.
To think we've been friends for over five years.
Under Batista things got to breaking point for you.
Not me, I kept out of politics, I have a clear conscience.
All I've ever done is work, like an animal.
Just think of Anita. So beautiful, yet living on a diet of black beans.
Is not good enough.
Yet they have the know-how to develop the country's economy.
Yes, the know-how.
The Americans know how to make things run properly.
- Check the oil. - I haven't any, but I can check it.
Why bother?
I've got to hand it in just as it was.
Is been inventoried. If is not as it was, I can't leave.
You'll have to touch it up with synthetic paint somehow.
You'll have to paint this part, at least.
He says a Cuban can stand everything except hunger.
Think how we've starved since the Spaniards came.
In Latin America...
... four children die of malnutrition every minute.
In ten years twenty million children will have died.
Equal to the death roll of the Second World War.
A symbol of decadence.
If I keep it here I don't have to get it repaired.
Well, if you prefer walking...
No, but I feel happier. Is a way out of problems.
They say the latest American cars are incredible.
I was reading a magazine Julio lent me.
Sealed engines, two spark plugs, a two year guarantee.
If it breaks down they give you another one.
That's the only answer to our mechanics.
People are becoming more stupid.
- Pablo's right: The French stink. - They're just naturally dirty.
I don't care if they confiscate the lot.
Is all the same to me.
But I'm not staying safe indoors, like when they fought Batista.
Truth is, I never thought they'd topple him.
I must do something now, or I'll be lost when this thing blows over.
That's what the Bay of Pigs prisoners said.
THE TRUTH OF THE GROUP IS IN THE MURDERER
We found, in the invaders' military organization, a social structure...
... reflecting the social structure and morality of the bourgeoisie.
The priest.
The free enterprise man.
The dilettante official.
The torturer.
The philosopher.
The politician.
And many sons of good families.
Each of them had specific duties...
... yet it was the whole, the group...
... which gave meaning to each individual activity.
Calviño was a murderer who even horrified the bourgeoisie.
The housecoat I wore is still bloodstained.
He kicked my stomach and I bled.
But that wasn't enough for him. Because I struggled...
...they broke two of my vertebrae.
They hit him with sticks.
You hit him, too. He fell on his knees...
... you kicked him in the side.
Then he fell down. Do you remember?
You abused him even after he was dead.
You shot him, then laughed at the way he died.
On October 6th, at 7 PM...
Do you deny it?
Do you deny...
...nine days after you had killed Morua...
... you boasted about it?
- Do you deny it? - I can't answer
In all capitalist societies...
... the same type of man is at the disposal of the bourgeoisie.
In the moral division of work...
... the murderer enables others to exist...
... others not in direct contact with death...
... who, as individuals, wish to keep their souls clean.
Speaking for myself and those like me...
... maybe a minority...
... we're not like Ventura, or those other miserable creatures.
I didn't even know Calviño then. I lived my own life.
They're like disjointed elements of a whole which no one fully admits.
I can't answer for the others. Everyone answers for himself.
It seems that you want to accuse me...
... of being the instigator of the invasion.
I insist my mission was purely spiritual.
I have never handled a weapon.
Being mixed up in a conspiracy doesn't make one a conspirator.
As I've told you, I've always taken a neutral stand.
I'm apolitical; never had anything to do with a political party.
One's personal behaviour excuses one from general responsibility.
Everyone concentrates on himself to escape contamination by others.
Or else, by sinking into the group to mask his own responsibility...
... he divides his guilt with others.
I wasn't the only one in the group.
Conversely, the group may be disowned...
... when its members wish to avoid responsibility.
You're talking about the group's idea, not mine.
But the idea of group responsibility...
... is the murderer-torturer's haven, his claim to moral innocence.
Listen, I've committed no direct crime, I tell you.
But none of the cases considered...
... shows the dialectic relationship between individual and group.
None of those who came with Calviño...
... see that they're part of a system which entangles them in their acts.
In the accounts of landowner Freyre...
... in the extreme unctions of Lugo...
... in the reasonings of philosopher Andreu...
... in the dismissals of dilettante Rivero...
... in Varona's "representative democracy"...
... who could divine the death they'd help spread over Cuba?
Death by starvation, by sickness...
... by torture, by frustration.
She cleans the apartment three times a week.
She's been coming for a year and I never noticed her.
She'd be attractive if she troubled. She's as thin as a Vogue model.
I like her.
She's a Protestant.
A Baptist, I think
Were you baptized in a river?
What happened?
Well...
Is it a secret?
We gathered by the river...
...the pastor and I entered the water and he told me the meaning of baptism.
For us, baptism symbolizes the death of sin...
... the resurrection of a new life, full of faith, hope and dignity.
Then he immersed me in the water.
You've no idea how frightened I was.
But it was all over so quickly.
All that worry and fuss for nothing.
Almost everyone's an exhibitionist.
I see people as weak, almost hairless animals, on two legs.
Someone said that man's intelligence and physical imperfection...
...are because he's the premature foetus of a monkey.
At an exquisite moment...
... between 30 and 35, Cuban women lose their looks.
They are fruits which rot at an amazing speed.
The rule of the Yankee empire...
... having been ended by the triumph of the Revolution...
... their Guantanamo Base is now a spy centre.
Our cameramen...
... film some of the provocations...
... by military personnel and counter-revolutionaries hiding there.
You have beautiful knees.
- Will you have dinner with me? - Are you crazy?
No, I just don't like eating alone.
Are you waiting for someone? Your boyfriend?
Are you crazy?
Is dangerous to wait around alone at your age.
You are crazy.
No, look... really...
Why not have dinner? I get indigestion if I eat alone.
I'm waiting for someone from the film company. I'm having a film test.
I have a friend there. An important director, I believe.
In the film company?
I'll introduce you to him, if you like.
- What's the time? - About six-thirty.
He's late. He won't come now.
Won't you have a drink?
I mustn't. I'm having injections for my nerves.
Why do you want to act?
I'm tired of always being the same.
I want to be someone different without people thinking I'm crazy.
I want to develop my personality.
But all those characters are like scratched records.
An actress just keeps repeating everything.
The same movements, the same words, thousands of times.
Where did you get them?
We found them. They're cuts made by the old censor.
The outfit we had before the Revolution.
They refused to pass such scenes.
They said they offended morals and good taste.
So they had their moral preoccupations, too.
At least they worried about keeping up a front.
- What will you do with them? - I might use them.
As a sort of collage, a bit of everything.
- It will need to have some meaning. - It will. You'll see.
Will they release it?
Have you acted before? In the theatre, or on television?
No, I had no luck.
Have you studied drama?
Well, I did intend to take some classes...
Well, just complete that form.
Aren't you going to audition me?
I can sing, too.
If you say so... Well?
Are you sure is no?
What a beautiful house. Do you like it?
Don't think we'll do anything.
That's where I live. Come on.
- I don't... - Don't what?
- What about your wife? - I told you, I'm divorced.
- Even so, what about the neighbours? - Well, if you don't trust me...
What's wrong then?
Well, you go up first.
Top floor, apartment K-L.
Make yourself at home. I'll make some coffee.
My parents... and my ex-wife, Laura.
They left on the same day.
And you?
Aren't you leaving?
No, I'm all right here.
Are you a revolutionary?
What do you think?
Neither revolutionary nor counter-revolutionary.
Well, what am I?
You're nothing.
- They'll send you things. - What for?
They could send nice shoes... maybe even a car.
Laura had a figure like yours
You can look at her dresses
You can have them, if you like.
Look at them, anyway.
Perfect!
You must fasten it up.
Come along now, don't cry.
You've ruined me.
We've done nothing wrong.
What shall I tell mama?
Don't tell her anything.
I'll come with you if you like.
No thanks, I'd rather be alone.
Call me.
Thanks to such things you're no longer a slovenly Cuban girl.
I never know whether you're serious or joking.
A little of both.
Go joke to your mother!
I can't stand living here any longer! You stink!
Everything you said was recorded.
Every word. I'll be fun when you hear it played back.
You monster! I'll smash the recorder!
Let me go! I never want to see you again!
I'm leaving... alone. I don't want you to come with me.
Leave me?
Find some other woman, more to your taste!
I won't be a guinea pig for your whims and games!
I'm going to live my own life! I'm getting old!
I don't want to be with you! I'm leaving!
Before your lips confirmed you loved me...
... I already knew it, I knew it!
All right now?
I thought you felt bad.
I'm all right now. I'll help you prepare lunch, if you like.
- What's the matter? - Nothing's the matter with me.
Go, say it! It couldn't last!
Is all over! You don't love me any more!
Nice?
Why did you cry last night?
- Don't make fun of me. - I'm not.
You are, you don't have any feelings.
You don't have to criticize the way I live...
One thing about people that upsets me...
... is their inability to sustain something without collapsing.
Take Elena...
... she was totally inconsistent.
Didn't relate things.
Thas a symptom of underdevelopment.
The inability to relate things, to gain experience, develop.
Is difficult here...
... because women are conditioned by sentiments and culture.
A soft environment. People waste talents on inconsistent adaptations.
They always need someone to think for them.
I hope to see you soon, Sergio.
No, I'm already familiar with the States.
What will happen here is the mystery.
Everyone knows what will happen.
Well, I don't. I really don't.
It won't be like the Bay of Pigs.
Maybe not, but it might have interesting results.
Right, but I'd rather be on the other side.
You'll be safer.
And you'll be able to see old friends.
I know what you mean, but there are decent people among them.
So they say.
Whatever they say, I've got a clear conscience.
You, yes.
Was I like him?
Possibly.
The Revolution is my revenge on idiots like Pablo, at my own risk.
I know Pablo isn't Pablo, he's my own life.
Everything I don't want to be.
Good riddance.
Like vomiting them up.
I keep my mind clear. A disagreeable emptiness.
I can't prevent whas happening to me: Him, Laura, everyone.
Francisco de la Cuesta lived here.
We were eight or ten years old.
Where is Francisco now?
Does he remember our pranks?
I try to and I can't.
At school the priests were always right.
They had the power.
I'd done nothing...
Then I understood the relationship of Justice and Power.
Armando's father was a freethinker.
Every week he'd give him a peso to go to a brothel.
He took me to a woman who charged 50 cents; told her to be nice to me.
But I couldn't do anything with her.
I had to find another.
After that I went every week.
Suddenly I discovered that Elena didn't think like me.
I expected more of her. I thought she was complex and interesting.
I'm Europeanized.
Elena forces me to feel underdeveloped.
I tried to change Elena, but, like Laura...
... she doesn't understand, she has a different world in her head.
She doesn't see me.
A TROPICAL ADVENTURE
Hemingway shot this gazelle on his last trip to Africa.
That was in 1953.
He made that trip with Mary, his fourth wife.
It is one of the fastest gazelles in Africa.
He said he killed it to avoid killing himself.
But finally he couldn't resist the temptation.
He made several trips to Spain as war correspondent...
Is this where Mr. Way used to live?
What's special about it? Books and dead animals.
Just like the American houses in Preston.
The same furniture, the same American smell.
- What's an American smell? - I don't know... you sense it.
Do you like the smell of Russians best, or Americans?
Leave me alone! I don't know anything about politics.
The tropics.
Backward countries...
... where you kill animals...
... fish and sunbathe.
And there: "the beautiful Cuban señorita"!
"I'll ever fear anything again", Macomber said to Wilson.
"Something happened inside me when I saw the first buffalo.
"Like a dam bursting. It was pure excitement."
As if chasing a buffalo would conquer fear.
Anyway, there are no buffaloes in Cuba.
He conquered fear of death, but couldn't stand fear of life...
...at a time when the world was beginning to get too big.
Why did you go away?
You were amusing yourself.
Do you mind?
You don't care.
You don't care about me.
About anything.
This is Hemingway's private study.
He could always be found at this typewriter.
He never sat down to write.
He'd get up very early and work till 11 or 11.30.
Few people were allowed into this room. I was one of them.
I would move about very quietly...
Rene Villarreal.
He was a guttersnipe when Hemingway found him.
I read that somewhere.
He moulded him to his need: Faithful servant and great lord.
Colonialist and Gunga Din. Hemingway must have been insufferable.
This was his refuge, his tower, his tropical island.
Big game hunting, American furniture...
... Spanish photos, books in English, a bullfight poster...
Cuba never really interested him.
It was his refuge, guest house, base for fishing in the Gulf Stream.
ROUND TABLE: LITERATURE AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT
Culture in an underdeveloped country...
...is the sometimes painful and costly operation...
...by which people become aware of the possibility...
...of changing social conditions...
...writing their own history...
...and select the most fertile of their traditions...
...to bear fruit in the conditions created by national liberation.
We are only a few steps away from being negro cooks and janitors.
I discovered I was a "spick", a derogatory term for Latin-Americans...
...negroes and other inferior people.
Although I look like a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant...
...I'm really a southern negro.
All Latin-Americans are negroes, discriminated against, oppressed...
...ignored outsiders in the swindle's pretensions of universitality...
...the American way of life, the great white dream of the U.S.A.
Now is the turn of the devil's advocate.
He who piles doubt upon doubt...
...and asks you:
Don't you realize, the words you are using...
...underdevelopment, underdevelopment...
...are sick, or at least ailing?
Don't you realize that these may be language traps...
...accessories of an already wasted culture...
...a stratagem, a linguistic alibi...
...a linguistic-ideological arrangement...
...leading to the tranquillity of formulas?
Is useless to flee the linguistic continent of underdevelopment...
...and forget that the basic contradiction of our times...
...is not the contradiction...
...between North American imperialism and underdeveloped continents...
...but the contradiction between the impetuous development...
...of the productive forces of the whole world...
...and the forms and relationships of capitalist production.
Between the socialist revolution...
...and the final imperialist phase of capitalism.
To take one of your examples...
...the basic contradiction between the proletariat and capitalism.
I believe that what you have said is a complete abstraction.
The embodiment of the basic contradiction...
...takes the form of war.
For me, the basic contradiction at this moment...
...is not between European proletariates and capitalists...
...but it is in the areas where war exists...
...there we see the basic contradiction, as in Vietnam.
The sole basis of this discussion...
...rests on whether the basic contradiction...
...is one thing or the other.
On pure Marxist grounds...
...I agree with you, but the embodiment is something else.
Who are you up there, with that cigar?
You feel pretty important; you don't have much competition here.
Outside Cuba, you'd be nobody; here you're well placed.
Who's seen you, Eddy? Who sees you now, Edmundo Desnoes?
I'll translate what Jack Gelber just said.
I don't understand... The American was right.
None of that helped. Words devour words and leave you in the clouds.
How does one get rid of underdevelopment? Is difficult.
It taints everything.
What are you doing, mixed up in all this, Sergio?
You've nothing in common with them. You're alone.
In underdevelopment things are forgotten, people are inconsistent.
But you remember too many things, too much.
Where's your family, your work, your wife?
You're nothing. You're dead.
Now, Sergio, your final destruction begins.
Is always the same with mother's letters: Gum and razor blades.
I use an electric razor.
All I asked for was books.
I can't read her writing.
They're crazy. We don't understand each other.
Hanna was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Escaping Hitler, they landed in Cuba.
Hanna was more of a woman than the underdeveloped girls here.
How long were we together?
I can't remember; the best thing that ever happened to me.
Why did I let her go?
When they left for New York we were engaged.
Not that we believed in convention.
I planned to settle in New York with her.
I wanted to be a writer.
Hanna was the one person who believed in me.
She'd help me.
Then father gave me a furniture store.
I worked like mad for two years.
"Hanna, darling, I can't leave now. Please understand.
"I don't want to arrive empty-handed."
Hanna, darling...
One day it was too late... I'll always look for you.
Where are you now?
What do you think of me?
Stop right here.
- Surname? - Carmona.
- Middle name? - Bendoiro.
- First name? - Sergio.
- Occupation? - None.
- Don't you work? How do you live? - From apartment rents.
An ex-landlord.
- Age. - 38.
- Nett income? - 600 pesos.
- Income from rest of family? - I live alone.
- Do you pay Urban Reform? - No.
- When did you last pay it? - I never have.
This apartment, are you the owner, illegal occupier?
I'm the owner.
- Any embargo? - No.
How many square metres? Roughly.
Is pretty big.
Lets say 100 to 200 square metres.
- Want to measure it? - No, I'll take your word.
Lets say 300. We can always correct it afterwards.
Type of construction: Brick.
Now, concerning these apartments...
- How many rooms each? - Bedroom and study.
- Servants' quarters? - Two rooms.
- How many toilets? - Lets see now... five.
- Baths? - Three.
There are two lifts. State of upkeep: Good.
Sign here.
- What's it all about? - Is just a sort of check.
If anything's out of order we'll let you know.
You can't turn there, go straight ahead.
Don't bother, I'll get out here.
In the midst of all this I'm living off rents.
I've got some 12 or 11 years to go yet.
Is two years since they took over my apartment block.
Everything's either too early or late for me.
Once I might have understood these going on.
But not now.
I'm 38 and I'm an old man.
I don't feel wiser, or more mature.
I'm more stupid, more rotted away.
Like rotten fruit, like refuse.
It may be something to do with the tropics.
Everything ripens and decomposes quickly; nothing endures.
I'm old already.
Since 13 I've been to brothels.
At 15 I was a genius.
At 25 I owned a store.
Then Laura.
My life...
... is like a sterile ornamental plant.
I have a certain dignity.
You Sergio?
I'm Elena's brother.
Is she ill?
She's never ill. Is something else.
She says you took advantage of her.
You've ruined her.
Is not something to be paid off with dresses.
She says you promised to marry her, then took advantage...
I should have known Elena was capable of anything.
I didn't want trouble.
I was willing to marry her. I was afraid.
Tell him what you told mother.
You deceived me.
You said you'd give me some dresses...
...then you took advantage of me.
If you say so.
But you know is untrue.
You're no virgin...
Show respect! My sister's no whore, damn it!
How could I get involved in this?
I resigned myself.
I'd let myself be dragged along. I was afraid.
Girls must go to the altar as virgins! Is their greatest treasure!
Women are liberated now.
Don't talk like a revolutionary, because you're not!
I won't be forced. If I marry is because I want to.
Why did you want to get rid of me?
Is not that, Elena. I'll marry you. Is just that I need to think...
Think about what?
I've got to make arrangements, haven't I?
I must get my divorce papers.
Yes, madam, I'm divorced.
Why did you have to bring her?
That night when she came home, her panties were bloodstained...
That's not true!
I'm sure she wasn't a virgin. What will they get out of this?
Any statement?
Is all untrue.
I didn't assault her: She consented.
It wasn't rape.
The accused, Sergio Carmona...
...planned to seduce Elena Josefa Doredo, aged 16...
...and with that intent took her to his apartment...
...at Linea, Vadado...
...where he abused her virginity...
...although aware that she was mentally disturbed...
...therefore incapable of resisting.
Have you anything to say? Address the attorney.
Do you know Elena Josefa Dorado?
Answer to the bench.
- Where did you meet her? - On 23rd Street, in Vedado.
Did you take her to your apartment and have sexual intercourse?
Tell me, before the night in question...
...did the plaintiff confess to you any previous experience...
...sexual intercourse with another man?
No, never.
I was the only one to give coherent evidence. That finished me.
It was as if I'd duped a "poor unfortunate."
It was to give me some of his wife's dresses.
She's left the country.
Now everything's "the people."
Before, they'd have been the guilty ones and I the respectable one.
The bastard has the nerve...
Did you threaten Sergio's life?
If he didn't marry her.
You threatened him. What did he say?
He said he'd make arrangements, but in the end he didn't marry her.
When was Elena taken to the doctor?
Well, according to mother... I don't know exactly...
Mother says it was some months before all this happened...
Do you know what the doctor said?
And the results of the tests?
Then came the verdict.
The accused, Sergio Carmona...
... invited Elena Josefa Dorado, aged 17...
... for a walk on the evening of 25th January, 1962...
...and during said walk they went to the home of the accused...
... located at Linea, where they had sexual intercourse.
Tests show no evidence of the girl being mentally disturbed...
...nor that she was insane or unaware of her conduct.
Secondly, the accusations by the district attorney...
...are as set out in folios six and seven.
Thirdly...
... the defence has denied all the district attorney's charges...
... pleaded for the acquittal of the accused...
...and dimissal of the case, with costs.
Finally...
... on the facts as proved...
... there is no evidence to sustain the charge of rape.
Upon consideration of the above...
...and with regard to Articles 142, 240, 741 and 742...
...of the Social Defence Code and the Criminal Prosecution Law...
...our verdict is that we hereby absolve the accused...
...of the crime of rape as charged by the district attorney.
A happy ending, as they say. Justice triumphed for once.
But is that so?
I'm left in a bad situation; I'm too educated to be innocent.
They're too ignorant to be guilty.
I just hope they haven't locked her away.
MORE PLANES AND WARSHIPS TO FLORIDA
KENNEDY RETURNS SUDDENLY TO WASHINGTON
YOUNG MOTHER HAS TRIPLETS
DOG WITH TWO HEARTS
TRADE UNIONS COMPETE FOR OUTPUT
PUT THIS UP ON THE NOTICE BOARD WHERE YOU WORK
HOW TO PREVENT TETANUS
MOST CASES ARE FATAL
ANTI-TETANUS INJECTION IS THE ONLY PROTECTION
THE THOUGHTS OF MAO TSE-TUNG
Attempting to resolve ideological problems, rights or wrongs...
... by administration or repression, is not only useless, but harmful.
For the safety of customers who come to the shop below...
...as well as for the sake of the tenants...
... why doesn't somebody repair our balcony?
Seven times I've reported it to the authorities.
She brought me a stack of photos taken at her baptism.
It wasn't at all as I imagined.
The robe didn't cling to her body. There were many people.
I hadn't thought of them, the witnesses who are everywhere.
People are ready to die, without considering who's to blame.
What if it all starts?
No good protesting. I'd die, too.
This island is a trap.
We're small, and too poor.
Is an expensive dignity.
We definitely reject any intention of an enquiry...
...any inspection of our country.
Nobody inspects our country.
We know what we're doing.
We know how to defend our integrity and our independence.
They threaten us with talk of a nuclear attack.
That doesn't scare us.
We know the age we live in...
...and we must learn how to live in it, with dignity.
All of us, men and women...
we are all one!
In this hour of danger...
...every one of us, revolutionaries and patriots...
...share the same peril...
...and victory shall be for all.
Our country or death! We shall win!