First Look ’25: Chronicles of the Absurd

Unfortunately, for Miguel Coyula and his collaborator-muse, Lynn Cruz, being an independent artist is illegal in Cuba. That is not my analysis. Those are the words of multiple government officials whom they secretly recorded. The apparatchiks did not just tell them. They also laid down the law for photographer Javier Caso, who happens to be the brother of Anna de Armas (whose roles they approved of). You can hear the censoring and the not so veiled threats for yourself in Coyula’s documentary, Chronicles of the Absurd, which screens today as part of First Look 2025.

Shot over the course of several years, Absurd initially documents the long, arduous production of their dystopian film, Corazon Azul. Eventually, it cost Cruz her livelihood, because she was expelled from the actors’ union, but never properly informed. She even sort of successfully challenges her expulsion, winning reinstatement along with the immediate, legally required 30-days-notice of her second, permanent ejection.

Routinely, their attempts to attend screenings of their past films are blocked by cops and secret police, who refuse to identify themselves. Accustomed to the harassment, Coyula and Cruz regularly leave home with secret cell phones hidden on their bodies recording whatever might transpire. Indeed, such recordings make up nearly the film’s entire audio track. Although they have no corresponding video, they use cleverly monstrous looking stand-in icons and slyly selected photos for bureaucrats with an online footprint, creating dramatic montages.

Frankly, Absurd would be quite amusing in a farcical and aptly absurd way, if it were also not so Orwellian. Clearly, Cruz and Coyula are not paranoid. Caso similarly employs their cell phone technique to capture the secret police trying to scare him away from his longtime friends. Fortunately for Caso, his relationship with his famous sister provides him some degree of protection.

Clearly, censorship is a serious business, particularly when it prevents Coyula and Cruz from pursuing their art and making a living. Yet, the film takes an even darker turn during the Covid era, when implying Cruz’s father might have suffered from potentially intentional medical malpractice, presumably in retaliation for her well-known artistic protests.

Despite the scarcity of actual video, Absurd is quite visually dynamic—to a genuinely surprising degree. It also vividly captures the ruthless fashion in which the Cuban government censors independent voices (remember, in Cuba, independence is illegal in and of itself), as well as its pettiness in punishing it critics. Very highly recommended, Chronicles of the Absurd screens tonight (3/16) as part of this year’s First Look—with the artists present.