Although Umberto Eco’s magnificent book is absolutely recommended, the film also includes devastating messages when it comes to addressing concepts such as faith, knowledge or fear and their perverse and effective combination to maintain control over human beings. Read More
Literature & Cinema
«When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.» ― Erasmus of Rotterdam
Personas decentes, monsters and murdered reputations
A journey through time from Yarini's Havana to that of The Rolling Stones, passing through that of the artists stripped of their art, victims of an atrocious and ruthless massacre against creativity.
Personas decentes is the title of the latest novel by the Cuban writer, Leonardo Padura. In this, among many other issues, «treatise on decency», the one from Mantilla shows us Havana at the beginning of the 20th century, when the end of the world had a date -April/May 1910- with the arrival of Comet Halley, and that of the second decade of the 21st century, when the birth of a new world also seemed to have a date -March 2016-, at least for Cubans, with the first visit to the island in almost 90 years by a US president, accompanied from the concert of some rock legends, who for the occasion stopped being villains to become heroes. All this in full thaw with the northern neighbor. Read More
'They Live'... and You Need Glasses
Sometimes a simple pair of sunglasses can be more than a pair of sunglasses… Read More
Fahrenheit 451: Arsonists of Freedom
Could human beings, by canceling their spiritual component, be able not only to renounce their freedom, but also to embrace their slavery..? Read More
'Westworld': Everything under Control?
Michael Crichton already warned us half a century ago, through cinema, of the dangers that lie in wait for human beings when they play at being gods, unleashing their creative hand. Westworld (1973), apart from being the first film to introduce computer-generated images in two dimensions, already advanced us in a certain way the concept of artificial intelligence… and its possible consequences. Read More
'Soylent Green', Future Grub
The cinema has sometimes been a perfect tool to transfer to fiction the future existence of dystopian societies, devastated by misery and despair, whose degree of dehumanization would seem impossible to achieve in a supposedly civilized world like ours. However, one of those films, released almost half a century ago, and whose plot curiously takes place in the year 2022, is full of disturbing and creepy winks to the present moment. Read More
