Havana Bound

By J.C.

WAITING FOR FIDEL

Directed by MICHAEL RUBBO

This eccentric, evocative film is less a documentary than a cinematic diary. Two men travel to Cuba. One, named Jeff Sterling, is a wealthy businessman who has made a killing in communications, specifically in television. The other is the former Prime Minister of Newfoundland, Joseph R. Smallwood, older than Sterling by at least a couple of decades, a dedicated Socialist. For Smallwood, the trip is practically a pilgrimage; for Sterling, it is a curiosity and a challenge. While Smallwood admires Cuban schools, medical care and housing programs, Sterling grouses about forced labor and compares socialism unfavorably with the free-enterprise system. "One of the great things we have," he insists, "is a sense of humor."

Director Michael Rubbo has one too, low-keyed but keen and honest. He accompanied Sterling and Smallwood, waited with them in Protocol Residence No. 9 (identified as "the former residence of an American textile tycoon") for the greatest event of the trip to happen: an audience with the Premier himself. Sterling and Smallwood had been promised some time with Fidel, perhaps even a whole day. Smallwood prepares yellow pads full of questions for Castro. Sterling stays looser, anticipates the meeting less as an ideological confrontation than as a social coup.

The audience, however, never comes. A sympathetic translator takes the party on tours of the island. Sterling, feeling slighted, takes his anger out on Rubbo, accuses him of shooting too much film. Smallwood, ever optimistic, gets invited to a diplomatic reception, where he receives a bear hug and sympathy from Fidel, who cannot spare more attention than that. His time is consumed by a visiting dignitary from East Germany. If Rubbo were less tactfill and intelligent, Waiting for Fidel might just be the movie equivalent of the journalist's last refuge, the trusty How-I-Didn't-Get-the-Story story. What most interests Rubbo, however, are conversations at cross-purposes and dashed dreams. Waiting for Fidel is so successful on its own terms that, had the Premier ever showed up, he would probably have wrecked the movie. J. C.

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