LOS FRIKIS
(director/writer: Tyler Nilson/Michael Schwartz; cinematographer: Santiago Gonzalez; editor: Jon Otaza; music: Steven Price; cast: Adria Adjona (Maria), Hector Medina (Paco), Eros de la Puente (Gustavo), Jorge Perugorria (Dr. Diaz); Runtime: 111; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz, Rebecca Karch; New Slate Films-in Spanish with English subtitles; 2024)
“An absurd coming-of-age story set in Cuba.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A sentimental, curious and ultimately an absurd coming-of-age story set in Cuba, in 1991, during its ‘Special Period.’ The film is based on real events when Cuba is going through a down period caused by both the fall of its Soviet Union backer and a successful embargo from the United States. It’s co-directed and co-written by the American filmmakers Michael Schwartz (“The Peanut Butter Falcon”) and Tyler Nilson (“The Peanut Butter Falcon”) with a heartfelt sweetness and edginess.
It follows a punk-rock rebellion by a group of young people (known as Los Frikas, those who exist outside the norms of Castro’s power structure). The rebellion against Castro’s perverted communist regime comes in the midst of the country’s economic collapse.
In the early 1990s, at least a few hundred Cuban punk rockers infected themselves on purpose with HIV believing this was a way to escape from the country’s economic depression and artistic censorship under Fidel Castro. At the state-run sanitariums, the AIDS patients had access to rock music (banned by Castro), subsidized free food and medicine, and other things the ordinary Cubans were not granted under the dictatorship of Castro.
These rebellious kids from Havana took the name of “Frikis.” They held out hope that a cure for the virus was just around the corner and Cuba would soon be rid of Fidel.
The story centers around the innocent 18-year-old Gustavo (Eros de la Puente) and his volatile punk rocker older brother Paco (Hector Medina), who influences his younger brother with tough love to join the Los Frikas movement.
Afraid of injecting himself with an HIV patient’s blood, Gustavo comes up with a fake report of being infected and gets admitted to a sanatorium in the country. He reunites there with Paco. The institution is run by the sympathetic Maria (Adria Adjona), a young divorcee.
The outcasts in the sanatorium relate well together and feel more free than they were when living in an oppressed Havana.
This under-reported story is a strange one. It has the Los Frikas teens made into heroic figures, even if their rebellion tactics seem to be questionable.
REVIEWED ON 1/6/2025 GRADE: B-
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