Juan of the Dead (2011)

 

Director: Alejandro Brugués

Screenplay: Alejandro Brugués

Cast: Alexis Díaz de Villegas as Juan; Jorge Molina as Lázaro; Andros Perugorría as Vladi; Andrea Duro as Camila; Jazz Vilá as La China; Eliecer Ramírez as El Primo

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #180

 

Hey, Papa Smurf, fuck you!

Zombie tales are so ambitious that you can get sick of them. It takes, however, one enticing idea to prove the figures still have worth to them. Namely, what would happen if a zombie outbreak broke out in a place like Cuba? A genre from a very different geographical location is always enticing - Cuba has a rich cinematic history, but most may know of it from the sixties to the nineties, and not genre cinema. Most may know I Am Cuba (1964), a Cuban-Soviet co-production directed by a Soviet filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov during Cuba's embrace of being a socialist country, but still an important film. That being the film most know Cuban cinema, whilst in danger of ignoring films like Memories of Underdevelopment (1968), is a perfect set up for what Juan of the Dead has in terms of meaning in its choice of country of origin.

I Am Cuba was a Soviet co-production, which celebrated the country as an idyllic world. Through its elaborate and legendary tracking shots, it was a tale of a socialist paradise. Move decades later to Juan of the Dead, a Spanish-Cuba film by Alejandro Brugués, and Havana now looks rundown and, in this cinematic universe, is now overrun by zombies when the outbreak starts. Inherently this is a tantalising concept. Now this is an entirely different country in terms of culture and political history, which changes a generic horror narrative from the tropes found in their cousins up in North America to something very different, such as the initial attacks call by their news media as the work of "dissidents" from the United States.

Cuba's history, becoming a socialist country, and the importance this plays to what the country's history is, and even world history, means that this island country has its own distinction cultural place before you consider how distinct the country looks here. It does however in pop culture have a less known place than you would think. That episode of The Simpson with Fidel Castro ("It's full of what?!"). The American film Scarface (1983), despite Al Pacino not being Cuban but Italian American as he played a Cuban immigrant becoming a drug lord, and to an extent the professional wrestler Scott Hall, who took the Pacino character into the wrestling ring. And the image of Che Guevara, whose image is seen in this film, and whose visage I could seen even on posters at the English university I went to, despite the chance the people who sold and bought his image probably do not know what he did and the history he was involved in that lead to the Cuban Revolution. (Even the fact he was not even Cuban, but born in Argentina. With the titbits of historical references you get here, Juan of the Dead is fascinating as a vast contrast.

At the start, it has a lot to offer. The central location, Havana, is completely distinct with its vast and tall buildings contrasted by the streets below. From the get-go mind, and to my surprise as Fidel Castro was still alive until 2016, Brugués through his characters such as the titular Juan, an older womanising crook, distant from his adult daughter who scrapes money together from whatever he can get, are blunt that Cuba is not in a great place for them. His best friend Lazaro, a chronic masturbator who should never be allowed to hold a spear gun as the narrative proves, hates Cuba and it is always considered by all but Juan to either go to California, such as for Lazaro's son nicknamed California, or swim over to Miami on the sea. The old traditions, pride of the free land of socialist Cuba, is merely a boring night out as Juan with friends go savaging in the sea in the day or just pickpocket people. Zombies in this context are so odd, they do not even know what they are between them. They know demons and vampires, apt as one of the only other Cuba horror films is the animated comedy Vampires in Havana (1985), but zombies baffle them even if they figure out quickly head trauma is the only effective way of dealing with them. It is never explained why the dead are coming to life, baring that even death by itself is enough to become one in the early parts before bites and scratches carry the infection.

A lot of context is likely lost even with a straight forward plot. Juan has more than enough reason to cope in this outbreak, with combat experience due to an "Angola conflict", whilst there are continuous comparisons to what happens in this undead outbreak to the "special period", which is a reference few may know of when in 1991, post-Cold War and the Soviet Union collapsing, Cuba started a violent economic downturn with food and fuel shortages. Reading even the barest of history of what that reference actually means really adds a striking note to when, whether characters merely make reference to it as Havana eventually becomes an undead wasteland, or that someone like Juan was able to survive the period with ease, it gains poignancy with little prior knowledge.

I will be blunter later, but sadly, Juan of the Dead does turns into a generic zombie film, but the what-if of this premise, the context, is enticing. It would be like, and I doubt this would ever happen, if a zombie film was set in Mainland China in the midst of what is seen as their government's controversial politics, with restrictions to the likes of the internet and their spiky relationship with Hong Kong; imaging a fantasy scenario where how a country's politics and culture reacted to such a monumental and disastrous event, such as here with Cuba its own country with its own cultural aspects referred to briefly, is a fascinating concept if usually likely to be controversial or not even created. Real life issues, like the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, have probably made this more uncomfortably close to home, even in countries like the United States and Britain in terms of how politicians and even regular people react, but zombies like other horror tropes are as used as much as metaphors for real life events if anything else, so it feels not tasteless but an apt comparison to be made. Especially as any horror or genre scenario which shakes the normalcy of an environment down and reveals what would happen in a speculative fiction is itself a commentary.

Unfortunately, most zombie films, like a lot of horror, never feel enticed to follow this through. In the beginning Brugués with his metaphor also managed to get some budget for his film too, or really good resources, promising a lot whilst set up as a blackly humorous horror film with energy. He has to use some obvious CGI, but I would only be harsh on that if a production has the resources, like a big Hollywood film, and managed to use them poorly; here as well, barring a bit of digital blood, he uses it for material it would be difficult for anyone to practically pull off, like an exploding helicopter, landmarks collapsing (usually for comedic effect), or even zombies on mass under the ocean which includes a funny nod to Zombi 2 (1979) and the zombie vs. shark scene. He has enough resources in contrast to have large crowds of real extras running around, literally in a stampede at one point, as victims or zombies to show a sense of scale. He even has some impressive stunt and practical effects, be it vehicle stunts to a possible use of wires when Juan runs on zombies' heads briefly.

It is a shame that, once the film set outs with a small cast trying to put up with the outbreak, this set up leads to something stilted. Stories of surviving a zombie apocalypse, whilst I have not burned on them, can work but not when they boil away the psychological grit into generic plotting. It definitely loses a great deal of its personality when it reaches its middle, characters suddenly becoming generic, a very manly film even if by accident which is not really with deep characters and interest to even run with this aspect into interesting territories. Women become bystanders or victims; the daughter eventually idolises Juan but has little else; there is a lot of gay humour, which goes beyond being the characters to leaving a bad taste, which is annoying considering one of the best characters here is China, a transgender figure who, with a beau who is a killer fighter but unfortunately feints at the sight of blood, is this glamorous figure that stands out and has a damn good aim with a slingshot.

Ultimately, the problem is one which defeats many films. Maybe it is just me, but I want the idiosyncratic in my cinema and find most action scenes in movies boring unless inventive. Horror for me is closer to drama baring the likelihood of shock and the grotesque, whilst the action beats zombie films eventually grew into, which Juan of the Dead follows, transform into something tedious. The little details that add personality are rich - everyone flees to Miami on boats, a protest against the US Embassy is attacked by zombies - but they are lost in the tropes and bears you can find from a zombie film from the capitalist USA, which is ironic to say the least. More nuances are found in signs and banners in the background, promoting the pride of the socialist Cuban, left abandoned and useless with mindless hordes around. Played mostly as a black comedy, with a lot of gory slapstick, Juan of the Dead is okay, but even with this same tone, a great deal is left on the table un-used that could have made something a lot more rewarding in terms of a fun zombie film and being a Cuban film where such a narrative is rife for ideas.