i am not into posting my view on blogs, but the above review from allmovieguide is based on complete political bias and has nothing to do with this film. the biography of kalatozov is also terrible. these must have been written by someone with a complete ignorance of cinema. however one feels about soviet communism or the cuban government, this film is a masterpiece and kalatozov is a master filmmaker. one could as easily dismiss eisenstein or battleship potemkin as they could this filmmaker and this film. or shakespeare’s henry v as royalist propoganda, or casablanca as american propoganda during wwii, or any other of a number of great works of art. oh and by the way, batista’s cuba was completely corrupt and the people lived in squalor, revolutions don’t happen without reason. however one feels about castro, and whether or not cuba is better off now is debatable, but either way this film speaks a great deal of truth about the situation there before he took over.