stylistic:tone, structural:scholar_edition
Hasta Cierto Punto

Hasta Cierto Punto directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea is a movie that follows Oscar, an educated playwright who writes a movie on the effects of machismo in Cuban Society. In the opening scene of this movie, there is an interview with a young black man who is asked about machismo. The young man laughs and says in the movie, "Oh, they've managed to change my attitudes on that score; I'm certainly changed up to a certain point. I've probably changed up to 80% now. Maybe they can work on me and change me to 87%. But they will never, never get me up to 100%, no way!" These attitudes on-screen reflect that of many men in Cuba and their attitudes towards women having more equality in everyday life. The film that Oscar was meant to write for is directed by his friend Arturo. Both are well-educated men with stable careers in their fields, wives, cars, and other luxuries. However, Arturo believes that the issue of Machismo is most directly a working class problem and that it is up to educated men such as himself and Oscar, to raise consciousness on the issue. Oscar and Arturo use working-class dock-workers to use as research for their film. This is where they meet Lina, a working-class woman who is in charge of the dock workers. At the beginning of the film she is represented to be tough on her workers and is well respected amongst all the men she works with. Oscar, the screenwriter, finds himself enamored with her tough attitudes, which are very different from those of women he has met before. However, as the movie goes on, we see Oscar increasingly find himself frustrated with Lina's free spirit and working-class "down-to-earth" personality. Oscar sees that this is not the kind of woman he is used to. Throughout the movie, although Oscar is having an affair with his wife, he finds himself being more empathetic to working-class struggles in a way that his friend Arturo is not. Arturo still believes that all working-class men are just "macho brutes " The film's dynamic on working class and bourgeois machismo is very telling of Cuban society and how class reflects on the attitudes towards machismo. It also problematizes bourgeois men who believe they are intellectually above everyone else, including issues on machismo and women's equality.