El Benny (2006)

I recently had the window of opportunity to see at least three quarters of this fine,but somewhat flawed film biography on Cuba's beloved singer,Benny More, who wowed audiences in not just Cuba,but Mexico & most of South America too. The story spans More's career from the mid 1940's, until his untimely death in the early 1960's at the age of 44 from complications brought on from his chronic alcoholism. The film also acts as a time line for some of Cuba's social history from the mid 1940's,onwards to the early 60's. The films musical soundtrack is studded with Cuba's vibrant musical scene from that era. The screenplay seems to be a bit scatter shot & fragmented at times (although anyone with a good handle on Cuba's social/political history of that era could easily wade through the quagmire that most of us Americans could only guess to). Sadly, as there is no North American distribution of this film, the screening was limited to a DVD copy that developed some serious technical glitches in the last half hour of the film (resulting in the screening being abandoned for the evening). Hopefully, some distributor with brains will pick up on this flawed gem & either give it a proper distribution in 35mm (with readable English subtitles,as it's spoken entirely in Spanish),or on DVD. As there is no MPAA rating, it contains some rough language,sexual situations & some rather unpleasant alcohol abuse scenes.