Sara Gomez’s One Way or Another is a highly arresting
blend of fact and fiction, announcing itself at the outset as a story of people
some real and some not, never quite clarifying where the lines are drawn. The
movie is in part the story of a relationship, between Mario, a manual worker,
and Yolanda, a teacher, the class and other differences between the two
embodying the broader cultural and structural divides that post-revolution Cuba
struggles to integrate (the film’s rough-hewn black and white visuals and
tentative or retrograde aspects often make it feel older than it actually is).
For Mario, this means suppressing his natural tendency toward domination
(Gomez’s My Contribution delved more specifically into the country’s
engrained machismo); at times he seems gripped by frustration at all that he
has to carry and calibrate within himself (several people suggest the
relationship is changing him for the worst), his tension exacerbated by a
workplace dilemma that pits personal loyalty against the collective good. For
all its open-mindedness, the film betrays little skepticism regarding the
righteousness of Cuba’s trajectory and dominant ideology, analyzing the lower
classes in terms of their lack of access to capital, and coming close to
condescension in noting how access to more modern housing and amenities doesn’t
necessarily cause a break with the old, marginalizing worldviews and rituals
(sacrificing a goat, for instance). When Yolanda is chided by her colleagues
for talking too impatiently and stridently to the less-educated parents who
fail to get the message about parental discipline and involvement, it's hard
not to think her frustration is partly also Gomez’s own. But the film is by no
means heavy going, although even its moments of lightheartedness – such as a bedroom
scene when Yolanda teases Mario with her impression of how he walks differently
with men than he does with her – carry a pointed undercurrent.
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