"A Chinese Fell into a Well" is a unique movie in contemporary Cuban film industry, a project from the imagination of an actor who, since I met him, showed genuine interest in the production of cinema, which is not very common among players. Carlos Alejandro Halley is, in fact, a special guy and it is not strange that, for his first film, he wrote and directed a movie with an observational and distant tone, to describe a "little party" of music, drugs, alcohol and sex.
The film is one of those products in which there is not a single actor or element that clashes in the visual conjunction, determined by aesthetic pleasure, in contrast to what is being narrated or described. This is where its most interesting and attractive feature lies: if it were a film made in Rome, Rio or Tokyo, it would be nothing new to anyone to meet a group of young people who have a good time during one night at a friend's apartment, where banality and insubstantial anecdotes are the norm, where partners are exchanged, glasses intersect and amorality reigns.
The point is that we see it in a Cuban audiovisual product. I am not talking about the "Cuban context", because it is enough to enter certain businesses in Havana (or attend an opening night of the Havana film festival, with its "parade of bodies and fashions", so beautiful that they do not need a red carpet) and notice the contrasts between a small privileged sector and the indigent mass, as in any city in the world. What is exceptional is that it is shot and the plot takes place in spaces of a social sector that is rarely seen in Cuban cinema.
I have not seen such a scene in most of Cuban movies by Cuban filmmakers. Films made by foreigners who visit Cuba or who study at its international film school do not count for me. Being a transgressor is very easy with a foreign passport. Their works are not like this, like the films by Fabián Suárez, by Luis Ernesto Doñas when he lived in Cuba, like scripts by Fabien Pisani or Jorge Molina, where reality denies the slogan of Cuban government, "America's first free territory", and places Cuban daily life in the world context, where a few "have a great time" (or so they believe, and we do too), but they are as miserable as the rest, seeking for happiness, even if it is through the path of glamor that embellishes the most exquisite corpses.
Some specialists may complain about its flaws as a first film, or treat it with disdain, but for me this 20-minute film is a fine achievement that deserves applause, extended to the entire talented and effective young cast and crew. I hope that Carlos Alejandro Halley takes matters seriously, that he can continue his revealing research and that he hopefully will turn his investigations into products with more elaborate scripts, but just as transgressive and irreverent as this. Good luck ... and be careful!
