Documentary Review: Fond Memories of Cuba

This documentary is by an Australian funded by a man named "Jim," who contributed half a million dollars toward a children's hospital. The narrator's mission is a cultural tour as well as to check up on the hospital, and to bury the ashes of a friend. Music and dancing, people ravaged by poverty waiting for their government rations, and jalopies rattling around, stories of torture, and a sense that the "I'm doing fine" coming from the older revolutionaries is only skin deep, forms the bulk of the film. The narration, along with the images, highlight both the intention of the film. In one case, he visits a sugar plantation and provokes a great deal of mistrust because of his foreign status. The viewer immediately begins to look at issues such as how much truth is going to be told to an outsider.