Among the Cuban films that I have seen lately, «La emboscada» has highly interesting dramatic elements contained in the screenplay by Ernesto Daranas and Ania Molina, from an original idea by Alejandro Gil. From the cinematic point of view it is a correct work, even discreet, in tone with the plot about three soldier that survive an ambush and are hiding to stay alive; although a bit of a "poetic flight" could have been welcome in the flashbacks, giving them a different visual treatment. However, what stands out in this film with a small cast and a low budget is its portrait of a faceless and nameless war, its bet on an almost metaphoric tale without forcing situations or interpretations. As it proposes this equation, the battle becomes a "civil war" of sorts, the story of a confrontation of stances within the frame of the war film, with quite a fair balance in the description of the opposing forces. The dialogues are rarely excessive: they are precise (except during flashbacks, where exalted emotions and melodramatic lines sometimes ran out of control). In the battlefield, there is a generation struggle between the idealists who blindly embraced the military structures, its iron discipline code, its rules completely out of touch with the new voices, and a younger generation that resents and wants to confront expired values, but is lost of words: the young men only have on their sides their honesty, their transparency and the will to transgress that code in order to save their own lives, and in that brave move, to save others' too. In the center of the plot there are three young men, without monopolizing screen time: first, there is Javier (Caleb Casas), the young soldier who manages to make a change on himself and affect the others, with an act of self- determination, a proactive decision that leads to the resolution, an action seen --I guess-- from the military point of view, as betrayal, cowardice, desertion, insurrection or any of those terms the men in uniform use against everything that challenges their code. Then there is Ernesto (Leonardo Benítez), the "prodigal" son who migrated and comes back to tell his military father what he meant in his own formation, serving an "imperialist army" in Iraq. Third, there is Camilo (Alejandro Cuervo), the son of the strictest of the older soldiers, a young man who turns out to be a rebel, a radical and a homosexual. The three of them, in their own way, show to their superiors the kind of world they want to live in. Finally there is Tony (Armando Miguel Núñez), a naive young man who becomes a victim, with no time to even become conscious of the stupidity of the deeply rooted power force. If this is not a reflection of what is going on in Cuba, tell me what is. However, it is Cuba, but at the same time it is not. It is a universal tale about human condition and its evolution in the whole wide world, that shows how the military has evolved from the force that defended the food of the tribes, to criminals. Besides a little boasting here and there by the cinematographer, I only have one big objection: the music. And not because the music by Juan Antonio Leyva and Magda Rosa Albán is bad, but because it is more often out of place than in cue. Quite the contrary, all performers are very good, especially Caleb Casas, Tomás Cao and Patricio Wood, who are the players in the core of the action.
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