I Am Cuba (1964)

Saw I Am Cuba (1964), a USSR-produced propaganda film about the (at the time) ongoing struggle  for Cuban liberation.  It's composed of a bunch of short vignettes all revolving around the struggle for freedom against (usually) Americans or against corrupt government entities.  It also contains a ton of wonderful and dizzying long continuous shots.  In one shot, we're following a funeral procession.  We start in a close up of a woman's face, then we rise higher and higher, entering into a window where men are rolling cigars.  They rush to the opposite window to watch the procession continue and we follow after them, swooping through the window and down the street like an angel.

Because the film is supposed to be propaganda, the film's vignettes are very obvious and simple: a woman foolishly rejects her poor but good-hearted boyfriend in order to pick up lusty Americans at a bar who glibly exploit her.  A student is radicalized by seeing how the police treat his revolutionist friends.  This film is not only a call to action but a frank call to violence.  In the last two vignettes, the characters are punished for not being sufficiently bloodthirsty, for not being willing to fire a gun.

Humorously, no one was pleased with this film when it came out.  The Cubans felt it was too romantic, that it portrayed them too preciously.  The Russians thought it was too artistic, that it was too "artistic" and not straightforward enough.  Pity the poor director.  The film is very pretty and gorgeously shot.  The camera cocks back and forth like the head of a confused puppy, letting buildings loom over characters' faces before rocking back into a tight closeup.  The camera work is phenomenal.

The story is simplistic and it allows everything to stay at a hind-brain level.  We're here to struggle with ambiguities.  We're here to feel righteous indignation and to feel pity for the poor beleaguered farmers, or students, or prostitutes.  It's a straightforward film.  Beautiful but simple in its goals.