For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story, (2000) HBO Films
As the opening credits roll, viewers see three hoodlums painting graffiti on a wall in Havana. The wall is adorned with a Cuban flag and a picture of Che where the star should be. Their graffiti says ?socialist murder.? Any movie that starts like this has to be great.
For Love or Country is the true story of Cuban jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and his life in Castro?s Cuba. Sandoval, played by Andy Garcia, struggles against the regime that has branded his style of jazz counter-revolutionary. His life is further complicated when he falls in love with a government employee who is true believer in the Castro?s revolution.
This movie has it all: Communist true believers, Castro?s secret police, a communist minister of culture stifling artistic creativity, elderly Cubans who have been beaten down by the regime, defectors who lie to their families to protect them, a State Department official who is clueless about the reality in Cuba and, best of all, great music, much of it played by Sandoval.
For me, this movie vies with The Lives of Others as the best depiction of repression in a communist regime. This movie slams home the way Castro?s regime and, all communist regimes, attempts to destroy the human soul. I could go on and on, but to say more would ruin the full impact of the movie. For more movies on liberty, see www.libertyflix.com and http://mises.org/content/film.asp#GF
