Cheap Waiting List (DVD) (Juan Carlos Tabío) Price

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Customer Reviews of Waiting List

Juan Carlos Tabýo has done it again
In case you are not familiar with the name, it was Juan Carlos Tab?o who co-directed Tom?s Guti?rrez Alea's last two films ("Strawberry & Chocolate" and "Guantanamera"). I highly recommend THEM as well. <
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>Tab?o's films are definitely NOT for the average audience in the United States. Most of us are too braindead to appreciate his brilliant creativity and his subtle messages. But for those of us old enough to appreciate the films created in Hollywood prior to Star Wars, and for those of us who appreciate slightly offbeat plots and outstanding character development, Juan Carlos Tab?o's films are a treasure. <
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>Tab?o is a genius whose comprehension of human nature is as keen as Steinbeck's. But that is where the similarity ends. His sense of irony takes his plots into the realm of "theatre of the absurd". Or is it just the absurdity of LIFE that accomplishes this FOR him? Here, passengers are trapped in a remote bus terminal -- the buses always pass full, and none of the awaiting passengers can board. They are stranded. And how they -- as typically resourceful Cubans -- deal with this situation is the rest of the story, part of it dream, and part of it real, but ... which is WHICH? And once they DO get the chance to leave the terminal, do they really WANT to? Or have the relationships they've established become more enduring than the one's they knew outside of the terminal? Is the terminal a microcosmic analogy for the island of Cuba itself? Determine that for yourself as you enjoy this brilliantly conceived and brilliantly produced movie. <
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>This is a heavy film, but with plenty of humourous moments. It includes many of Cuba's finest actors, and a script written by one of the greatest directors in the world. DON'T MISS IT. <
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A Lesson for Life
This movie develops in a Cuban Bus Terminal when a bunch of people find themselves stocked there because the only autobus available for service is broken. With no other choice, the terminal is now their home. For me, it was like the cuban version of "The Terminal". The film contains a pretty straightforward message: A Happy life is not about what you have, it is about what you share.

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An Allegory of the Potential Latent in Common Interest
Waiting List is an excellent allegory on how the recognition of common interest, especially under conditions of scarcity, can naturally lead to collective action that benefits all in ways not imagined initially. <
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>The movie opens at a bus station where would-be passengers selfishly compete for the few seats on the buses that stop at the station en route to other destinations. The figure of the scarcities produced by capitalist economies is obvious. <
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>The bus station has its own bus, but it is broken down. The necessity of repairing the bus, as well as finding food to feed everyone stranded at the bus station for several days, causes the would-be passengers to move from understanding their interests individually and selfishly to understanding them collectively. Once they realize their interests collectively, the characters and their aspirations are transformed in a manner that seems natural. <
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>At first a few qualified leaders emerge to harness the collective will and interests of the passengers by motivating them and providing them direction. However, in due course the leadership "withers away" because the passengers begin to actualize their unique talents and potential for the common good--abilities, in some cases, that have lain dormant for years. This is an apparent analogy to the Marxist belief that socialist societies will require the direction of a vanguard of communist visionaries and leaders until a communist societies evolve which require no leadership at all. In my view, the plot's ability to allegorize the naturalness of this evolution is its best achievement. <
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>In time the passengers transform the bus station physically and spiritually as well. The bus station ceases to be a point of departure and becomes a point of arrival because the passengers discover community, solidarity, love and sustenance simply by pursuing their common interests collectively. The bus station becomes home, and the passengers want to remain in the community that the bus station provides because the solidarity and equality they've discovered is now understood as what they've really wanted all of their lives. The movie pulls all of this off masterfully. <
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>But then the film surprises us. We discover that the events (the substance of the allegory) were a collective dream held by the passengers during the course of one night. Yet the dream alone, absent its realization, benefits the passengers in obvious ways. They now relate to one another out of their awakened sense of common interest and altruism as demonstrated by the help they provide one another to travel to their separate destinations. In essence, once the film persuades us that this communistic society was real, it then jolts us with the realization that such a society is as yet an unrealized dream. We are brought back to reality (to the circumstances that opened the film), but now reality is charged with the potential of collective fulfillment. <
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>I have one issue with the film. During the dream sequence, one of the characters dies. The death seems to have no purpose other than to make the film's message about the possibility of collective fulfillment explicit during the stationmaster's eulogy. The film could trust itself more. It doesn't need to explicitly "tell" us its message. It has masterfully shown us its message already. <
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>This is another Cuban film of remarkable acting, direction, subtlety and insight. It is well worth purchasing.