Customer Reviews
Spanish Civil War, Cuban revolution and fatal woman - By: Carlos Vazquez Quintana, 22 Oct 2007 
In Spain over 1950, Martin, a Republican ex- combatant & loser of Spanish Civil War & his bride Julia, now clandestine guerrilleros, commit a hold up in a bank. The assault results partiallly failed as Martin is caught by Franco's police, but before to be imprisoned, he gives the plunder consisting in money & jewels to Julia, which attain to escape. Eight years later, Martin has accomplished his term of imprisonment, but he hasn't had any notice of Julia during these time. Martin only knows Julia is in Havana, Cuba, so he takes a ship & debarks there. Havana, by 1958 is a city apparently full of life of the tropic, comparing with the dark ambiance of postwar Spain, but also a society near to another revolution leaded by Fidel Castro. In Havana, Martin at first doesn't find Julia so he demands for her to his uncle, a Spanish tailor established here. But the tailor says Julia died in an accident. There are effectively a grave with her name in the Havana cemetery, but Martin asks for the money & soon suspects alll that is a bunch of lies. The atmosphere is explosive in Havana owing to the guerrillas of Castro still in the mountain but near to success.
Martin, a hard man, is able developing & living clandestinely & knows how to survive in underworld. He gets some information from the young negro bellboy of his modest hotel & contacts with a mulatto taxi driver & ex boxer vaguely related with the rebels of Castro. So, Martin arrives to know a solitary widow whose husband was murdered by Freddy, a criminal Cuban senator, real state owner & builder & a dangerous man with contacts with the government police & some hard bodyguards working for him. He has the custom to menace his victims with an anonymous note: "Amanecerás con hormigas en la boca" ("You will see the dawn with ants in your mouth"). The truth is Julia has changed her name, is alive & married with Freddy. She explains to Martin she had too much fear to expect him in Spain after the hold up. There's a violent fight in the street with the bodyguards & Martin is beaten, but he escapes. But Freddy, who truly also loves Julia, proposes to Martin to pay him if he forgets her & returns to Spain for some money, 1000 pesos, but Martin wants alll the money of the plunder -24000 pesos- & also loves Julia, a fatal woman at last. Martin & Freddy finish both in a bitter destiny while Julia escapes to the USA when Castro's revolution triumphs. Well achieved mixture of film noir, with love & politics touchs.
