Unfinished Spaces
Written by Hugo Dracula // November 10, 2011 // Starz Film Fest // No comments
Hugo saw this film at the Starz Denver Film Fest. It’s still going on – you should GO!
Even communists can’t agree on good architecture. This workmanlike documentary looks back into one of the casualties behind Cuba’s cushy relationship with Soviet Russia during the 1960s: the partly funded- almost completed-but later abandoned- National Arts Schools. We meet the three architects behind its construction, who are still lucid and eager to talk about the project’s ups and downs. They still harbor dreams of finishing it (one out of the five is completely renovated), but their hopes oscillate when there’s no funding to make it happen.
The doc’s trepid pace is helped by the charming personalities of these ambitious and resilient architects, but it’s still about 40 minutes too long, even for history and architecture buffs.
