A film about a nuclear power plant that never was
By Irina Pino
HAVANA TIMES – The first Cuban nuclear power plant was a project coordinated with the former USSR. It began taking shape in the 1980s in Juraguá, south of Cienfuegos. Equipment and technology from that nation were brought in for the project. Additionally, a residential neighborhood was built for the workers and their families.
I recently saw the film The Work of the Century (2015) at the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba, which was set in this location. The film, directed by Carlos Machado Quintela revolves around a patriarchal relationship among three different generations: the grandfather, the father, and the son, who live together in an apartment assigned to the son, an engineer who studied in the Soviet Union.
These are men without women, burdened with problems and frustrations. The grandfather is a staunch machista who sabotages his son’s budding new relationship; the grandson waits endlessly for a girlfriend who never returns. Their daily life is a battlefield, with frictions that lead to constant psychological and physical violence.
It’s interesting that the personal story intertwines with the history of the defunct plant. However, to be honest, the script lacks the necessary weight to support the feature film; thus, the director relied heavily on archival footage, which becomes overwhelming. In the 1990s, with the collapse of the socialist bloc, the nuclear plant project was halted.
The film continuously shows the faces of local residents and workers, leaving a mark of pain for what could have been. Many humble people are shown doing farm work, as they had no other choice. There is an image of the plant in the distance, like a defeated icon. It seems as though they live in a ghost town.
The production suffers from poor audio quality, which sounds distorted, while the black-and-white imagery conveys a heavy atmosphere. The narrative certainly has a rough, rustic finish; even in its editing, there’s a dog that dies and then reappears in another scene.
The settings are overwhelmingly gray, as if everything is slowly crumbling without hope. The scenes shift between reality and surrealism. There is nothing beautiful around.
Despite its flaws and pessimistic tone, the film won several international awards, such as the Silver Listapad at the Minsk International Film Festival and the Ivos Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival in the Netherlands, among others.
The cast features the late actors Mario Balmaseda and Manuel Porto, as well as the always theatrical Mario Guerra.
This is yet another film that highlights the failure of a system. What would have happened if this nuclear plant had successfully been put into operation, with reactors across many areas of the island?
We might have had a different country, especially now, when power outages are burdening our lives.
Read more from the diary of Irina Pino here.
