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Madagascar (1994 film)

Madagascar
Directed by Fernando Pérez
Produced by Santiago Llapur
Written by Fernando Pérez
Manuel Rodríguez
Starring Elena Bolaños
Zaida Castellanos
Laura De la Uz
Music by Edesio Alejandro
Cinematography Raúl Pérez Ureta
Edited by Julia Yip
Release date
1994
Running time
50 mins
Country Cuba
Language Spanish

Madagascar (1994) is a Cuban film that marked Fernando Pérez's change of direction into a more lyrical approach to filmmaking, somehow stripped from the realistic documentary feel of his early work. The film chronicles the relationship and lack of communication between a mother and daughter during the Cuban economic crisis known as the Special Period.

Madagascar was originally conceived as the first part of a trilogy to be entitled 'Pronóstico del tiempo' ("Weather Prediction"). The production and post-production of director Fernando Pérez’s third fiction film was completed in September 1993 to await the preparation of the work’s other two parts: 'Melodrama' ("Melodrama," dir. Rolando Díaz) and 'Quiéreme y verás' ("Love me and you’ll see," dir. Daniel Díaz Torres). The three directors had worked together to develop their ideas for the creation of the project, but in the end, according to Pérez, the films wound up lacking the necessary continuity necessary to bind them together. Partly as a result of such concerns over their contents, and partly in response to the delays produced by an ongoing shortage of production funds for Díaz's and Díaz Torres' works, each wound up being released independently. During December 1994, over one year after the completion of its post-production, Madagascar first appeared in Cuba’s theatres as part of the annual New Latin American Film Festival held in Havana.

Madagascar was inspired by the 1984 Mirta Yáñez short story "Beatles contra Duran Duran" ("Beatles Against Duran Duran"). The story chronicles the relationship between the narrator, who is a single mother and pragmatic middle-aged professor of physics, and her moody adolescent daughter. The plot of the film draws loosely from the original text, which Pérez appears to have used as a point of departure and a rough character sketch as he worked closely with cinematographer Raúl Pérez Ureta and screenwriter Manuel Antonio Rodríguez during the developmental stages of the project. Laura (played by Zaida Castellanos) and Laurita (played by Laura de la Uz) are the central characters of the film and bear an obvious resemblance to the unnamed narrator of the short story and her daughter, Pilar. However, the film’s mode of expression as well as its plot both diverge greatly from that of the story.

The main characters' opposing personalities form the focal points of the film’s narrative, which becomes a sort of psychological travelogue. During the opening sequence, we learn that Laura’s life has entered into a mysterious psychological crisis, exacerbated by her daughter’s extreme behavior. In an opening monologue, she tells us that she has lost the ability to dream anything different from what she experiences in her daily life. This monologue, and ostensibly the rest of Laura’s ongoing voice-over narration, occurs in the context of a consultation with an unseen doctor. From then on, the plot focuses around Laura’s internal conflicts and her relationship with her daughter. In an early scene, Laurita informs her mother that she has grown tired of school and will be taking a break from her studies in order to travel to Madagascar. In response, Laura becomes furious and criticizes Laurita for indulging in such frivolous fantasies. Increasingly disaffected, Laurita proceeds to undergo a series of personality transformations. This disturbs Laura, who is frustrated with the stagnant conditions of her own life, but cannot make such sudden changes.


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