translated from Spanish: “The Wasp Network”: the (bad) story told when it’s not yet history

The film “The Red Wasp” by the Frenchman Olivier Assayas (Paris, 1955) is one of the last premieres of the Netflix platform.
Previously the Gaul directed films such as “The Hours of Summer” and “Personal shopper” (winner in Cannes), in addition to the series “Carlos”, about the famous Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramirez.
This time, his film tells the story of a group of Cuban spies infiltrating the anti-Castro exile groups in Florida to fight attacks on the island in the mid-1990s. It is based on the book “The Last Soldiers of the Cold War” (2011), by Brazilian Fernando Morais.
 
History of the Cold War
The actions of the anti-Castroists ranged from planes illegally entering Cuban airspace to rescue fodders and throw pamphlets over Havana, to the placement of bombs and machine gunning on beaches and hotels to damage the island’s tourism sector, with the participation of groups such as “Brothers to the Rescue” and characters such as the Cuban terrorist Luis Carril Posadaes.
The characters are played by a multinational cast that includes Spain’s Penélope Cruz, Mexican Gael García Bernal, Venezuelan Edgar Ramírez, Brazilian Wagner Moura, Argentine Leonardo Sbaraglia and Cuban Ana de Armas.
This film is based on the true story of five Cubans convicted of espionage in the United States in 2001. They were part of a larger group, but the rest, unlike them, preferred to work with the American authorities to avoid prison.
After an international campaign in their favor, the last three of them were released in 2014. They are known in Cuba as “The Five”.

Film or history?
What should we write about in this review? Do we focus on the film, or the plot you’re trying to bring to the scene?
It’s hard for a Cuban, no matter how journalisty it is, to treat this issue as a movie script. This is the story of what may have been the last epic cold war plot or at least the historical dispute between Cuba and the United States, if President Barack Obama’s efforts had had a second chance.
It is almost impossible to stop seeing this subject as something particular, as a story that is part of Cuba’s common history in these long years of crises that are not yet over. Because the long days dedicated to “Los Cinco” (according to official terms in Cuba), or Cuban spies (according to their detractors from Miami), are undoubtedly the last and most sound struggles captained by Fidel Castro in the twilight of his life.
He was also part of the tabletop conversations on Cuban evenings, of the reasons for family division on both sides of Florida. A theme of the most countless passions among Cubans and admirers of the island, whether on one side or the other of the ideological spectrum. Therefore, talking about something that happened so many years ago for a few years, may be for many something that happened “yesterday”, impossible to value with the distance and the strangeness that such an episode deserves.

The film
But if it’s film criticism, this is a film that stays in the middle of everything. An actor direction so poor that at the moment it seems to be a group that leads; a script full of subplots that do not end up weaving the network that advertises in its title or anywhere reaches five the stories one expects.
It is true that it is based on the characters that are perhaps more histrionic in this plot, but it leaves out some stories that could well shape the way you operate an espionage network with a truly complex mission at a time when this is paid for with life… or rotting in the far-off prisons of his house.
The actors also have, for the most part, high and low in a performance that we expected most. The director managed to assemble a stellar cast to discuss an issue that would at least bring (no matter the quality of the film) a rejection in Miami.
Penelope Cruz does not finish giving a Cuban, except for the character he is commissioned. Edgar Ramirez looks better, Gael García Bernal looks comfortable, Wagner Roura doesn’t get any of his memorable characters, and all of them only get a jumping plot that leaves a lot for research if you want to know about it, or confuse at least about what really happened.
The best? Many truths are said that to this day were (and are) vetoed in the media in many places: we directly touch the linkage of terrorism, drug trafficking, business with possible altruistic intentions such as rescaCubans who on rafts were jumping across the Florida Strait.
Something that is undoubtedly reason for instead of thinking about improving the film with something better, some voices rise to watch the Netflix platform this mediocre film that is debated in an attempt to look good with everyone, but that in the end does not fit with anyone. And this includes viewers.

The story
Can this film understand the phenomenon that drives people to leave their comfort and the assurance of what they believe to infiltrate another country among people who think diametrically different from them? No. But maybe that’s not the point of telling it.
Because telling the story when it’s so fresh is a task, at least, difficult. Because telling a story that, like everything that follows the Cuban ideological political idea divides as an earthquake the opinions of thirios and Trojans, turns out to dive into turbulent waters, from which to survive is pure utopia.
I think the movie fails by name. Everyone expects to see the story of “The Five”, who preferred to face long sorrows and those known to have collaborated with their captors and are considered traitors in Cuba. For the Cuban revolutionary epic, the important thing was the message of patriotism and humility that those men and their families starred in, and on this was established an international campaign that had thousands of supporters.
It was not important in Cuba why this network was discovered. Some properties said that documentation provided by Fidel Castro’s government to the FBI to encourage possible collaboration in the face of drug trafficking and terrorist activities had aroused the curiosity that led to the network stopping the network.
Trial documents, labeled “national security” by the US government, have since been published. Enter, about a couple who, since they came to fulfill their mission, surrendered to the FBI.
Either way, they were being watched. If their presence there had actually been harmful to the security of the United States, they would have been arrested much earlier.

The airplanes and “Brothers to the Rescue”
I remember the pasquines rolling through the streets of the Havana Malecon. Although I didn’t see the planes, everyone on the corner of 23rd Street and Malecon commented on how a plane had flown low and wheeled out with slogans for human rights. I remember the first thing I thought was: how easy it would be to get a virus!
A few days later, two planes were shot down by Cuban warplanes. Many warnings were averaged, but the result was the same: four young men died in circumstances that could well be avoided.
Like all premature deaths, these are pitiful. To top it all off, they have been taken as a flag for a grit fight between opponents. And it was an important element in the indictment of the five in front of a court in Miami from which there was no way to get away with it.
Did “Five” have to do with the shooting down of the planes? I don’t think so. The decision to fire on civilian aircraft that for the umpteenth time penetrated Cuban airspace was the political and military authorities. The fact that, thanks to their espionage work, was known by the Cuban government, I do not think it would alter the announced decision to bring them down if they refl flew over Cuban airspace.
The interesting thing is that this theme and the linking of “Brothers to the Rescue” and Luis Posada Carriles with terrorist actions, including the planting of bombs in tourist sites in Havana reported directly in the film, have not received a blunt response, at least as forceful as that of trying to distort the story that the director took from Morais’ book.
The story of “The Wasp Network”, as much or more than all that can be told that derives from the tragedy that the Cuban people live in their long and complex struggle for independence and sovereignty, will always be seen with the ideological prism of those who observe it. It will take a long time for history to address this issue with the pragmatism it requires.

Original source in Spanish

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