THE LAST SUPPER

Cuba, 1976, 112 minutes, Colour.
Nelson Vilagra.
Directed by Tomas Guttierez Alea.

The Last Supper is a Cuban film made by director T. G. Alea, the maker of Memories of Underdevelopment seen widely outside Cuba. Alea has a strong socialist background and believes in the persuasive power of his educative parables. The film is bold in taking the days of Holy Week for its structural framework. Within this context the days of Christ's Passion are followed through with parallelisms in an 18th. century sugar plantation in Cuba. The plantation has slaves who are persecuted and who rebel. The plantation is also in the throes of an industrial revolution.

Echoes of the contemporary socialist regime are to the fore. However, the characters even of the aristocracy are very well drawn indeed and give the film great complexity. The Count is a benign paternalistic owner of his plantation and presumptuous in how he deals with his slaves. After their suffering including the punishment by the cutting off of an ear, the Count invites the slaves to a re-enactment of the Last Supper and puts before them his philosophy of the redemptive value of suffering. They also tell stories which are much more subversive of the given order - especially when the hero Sebastian tells the parable where Truth kills Lie and walks about wearing the head of Lie.

Good Friday is a Passion day when the slaves revolt against their oppressive overseer and the irony of Easter Sunday is that the slaves themselves are persecuted, especially those who sat at the Last Supper and finally the Count dedicates a church to the memory of his cruel overseer. The film is well made, beautifully coloured and interesting re-creation of 18th. century atmosphere. The film is provocative in its criticism of established aristocratic ways and its implications for a socialist society. Interesting in itself and well worth discussion.

1. The overall impact of the film? As entertainment, social parable? The social implications of the film, religious implications, human values, consequences? A glimpse of the history of Cuba, its relevance to the 20th. century Cuban situation, its universal value?

2. The film as a Cuban production: technical aspects, colour photography, special effects, the re-creation of the 18th. century, the use of the classical musical score, Cuban rhythm and melodies? The atmosphere of Cuba?

3. The religious presuppositions, knowledge of the Gospels, the significance of Christ, the symbolism of Christ-figures? The knowledge of Christian Holy Week, the particular significance of the days of the Passion? The Spanish heritage, the Cuban Christian heritage? The film's judgment on Christianity, on its style in Cuba? Christ linked with Spanish autocracy? Christ as regards slavery? Principles and the hypocrisy of principles? The focus on Holy week, the Last Supper and the meal before death. the significance of suffering and the meek and the persecuted inheriting at least eternal life? The parallels with Christ's Last Supper? The overturning of the symbolism with the Count then becoming a persecuting figure instead of Christ, the persecuted twelve becoming Christ suffering and death figures? How well did the film use its Christian background, use its ironies?

4. Audience knowledge of Cuba and its 20th. century history, Spanish autocracy and heritage, the Castro revolution, the communist and socialist background of Cuba in the '60s and '70s? Cuba as part of the Third World? Oppression and the reasons for it, the drive to revolution, the consequences of violence and death? Social justice and Cuba?

5. The themes of slavery, Christianity and the permitting of slavery? Spanish colonies and the use of slaves? The Count and his presuppositions and paternalistic treatment of the slaves? Christianity and its Gospel statements on slavery and equality? The oppression of slavery and audience response to it especially in the Wednesday sequences? The pursuit of slaves and their punishment, the housing of the slaves, the inhumanity and humiliation? Their work in the particular sugar plantation and in the industry? The slaves as victim of greed? The irony of the Africans and Cubans employed in slave-selling before they themselves became slaves?

6. The native Cubans and the treatment of them by the Spanish, by Don Manuel, the overseer? Humiliations, subdued, exploited? The taking away of their humanity, manliness? The drive to escape or the lack of energy? The interior feelings of vengeance and the occasion for their being brought to the surface? The pathos of victims?

7. The focus on Wednesday and the slaves waking up (and this being repeated on Friday with ironic consequences), the position of the slaves, the details of their work, Don Gaspar, the French experimenter,, and his relationship with Manuel, with the slaves, his advice to the Count about the slaves and the experience of Santo Domingo? The arrival of the Count and his retinue, his dress. manner. representing the aristocracy of the 18th. century - and echoes of the French Revolution? The priest and his subservient role? His later pleading for the slaves? Manuel and his cruelty, the pursuit of Sebastian and the cutting off of his ear? The reaction of the slaves, the reaction of the audience? The build-up of tension on the Wednesday?

8. The focus on Holy Thursday and the anticipation of the supper? The parade of the slaves. the Count and his seeming benevolence. his bath and his discussion about morality with the priest., the Count and his piety and yet his human weaknesses,, sexuality and the female slaves? The Count and his benign favours? The selection of slaves for the supper?

9. The impact of the central sequence of the supper? Its length? The Count and his taking the place of Christ? His figurative serving of the slaves ~ the twelve, the washing of the feet. the kissing (even with distaste), the meal., the sharing of equality? The possibilities of equality and the slaves enjoying it? The breaking down of their inhibitions? Their playful response, enjoying of the food,. even stealing it? Their jokes amongst themselves? An expression of being human? The importance of the development of the stories told? The growing drunkenness and benign attitudes? A surface experience and not lasting? The importance of the stories told: the Count and his lecturing the slaves on the Gospels, the value of pain and the sanctity of suffering and slavery? The stories the slaves tell - the king and his story of how he once sold slaves. the story of the man who traded his father and was then sold by his own family, the reality of the setting free of the old slave who was ridiculed for having no home? The importance of Sebastian's parable and its paradoxes - the role of Truth,. the killing of Lie.. and Truth walking about with the head of Lie? The cumulative effect of these stories? The light thrown on themes of slavery, freedom. endurance?

10. Friday and the Count's departure, Manuel and his cruelty, his oppression and the stimulation to revolt? Manuel and his going into the stocks, his being put to death, the sequences previously with his wife and then the death? Slaughter, fire? The pursuit and death of the woman? The priest and his inability to control the situation., his pleading with the Count? The Count and his disillusionment, hardening his heart, likening Christ to Manuel?

11. Saturday and the details of the pursuit? How well known were each of the twelve. their characters, stories,. audience sympathy for them, the desperate flight, so many deaths and the detailed ugliness of their deaths? The irony of Don Gaspar and his role on the estate and his hiding of Sebastian?

12. Sunday and the irony of the Resurrection with so much death, slaughter, Resurrection Day as a death day? Yet the irony of Sebastian being free on the day of the Resurrection - the final slow motion run, the symbolism of the free birds? How appropriate, symbolic, emotive?

13. How well drawn was the Count and his character, symbol of the colonial period, snobbery and arrogance, the hypocrisy of his won life. his idea of equality and yet the hardening of his heart?

14. The portrait of Manuel and his cruelty and audience feeling towards him?

15. The significance of the priest as the official representative of Christianity, his values, supporting the system, sympathy for the slaves? The Christ-figure compared with the Count?

16. Audience sympathy with the supper victims, exhilaration at Sebastian's escape? What was the audience left with in terms of social sympathy, attitudes of social justice,, human sympathies, understanding of the Christian tradition and its paradoxes and ambiguities?