StolenCompass

There is a scene of a man, surrounded by typically colourful Cuban architecture, on a horse while using his phone - the contrast between worlds of old and new, of tourist eyes (read also of the filmmaker's eyes). It feels authentic, vivid, alive. It is an exception to a film of guidance - a manipulation of feeling within a fascinating culture.

Take for example: Benni, one of the protagonists, who is shown to be calculating. We see him counting the finances of every day. Once more, in case you didn't notice, he is logical, he premeditates everything, he cannot let go. One more time. Let's show them again. The viewer isn't given a chance here to interpret, but is told how a character must be. In case we didn't realise already, we hear once again in the hallway of the hotel how he won't let ago even when drunk.

I would like to focus on what kept me watching: the random conversations with strangers. The essence of the search, for which the viewer is not really invested for nothing, is really explained. There is money...inheritance, and then western guilt at excessive tourism, and it possesses the film like a streetdog with jaws clenched upon the inevitable appearance of a wedding dress.

There are no great revelations in this film, no personal stakes that the characters themselves seem to have worked towards. Instead, it is the hands of the writer, the director, moving the strings of the puppets, and the viewer left to be manipulated or turn off. It is not to say that it is not worth watching. Sometimes I felt the air of Cuba filling our living room. But I longed more for the place rather than the story, which went nowhere and everywhere. I longed for depths of characters far beyond this film. Time to go back to words,