Search - Guantanamero on DVD

Post traumatic stress disorder

Ron Braithwaite | El Indio, Texas United States | 08/20/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This movie is a surreal criticism of the tortures that are--according to Hollywood--taking place in Guantanamo. The main character, a supposed terrorist suspect washed out of Guantanamo during a storm, is rescued by a beautiful night club dancer who invites him to live on with her platonically. The whole thing is a bit much for Ali, our middle-eastern Muslim now in sensuous Cuba. He is both appalled and attracted by the girl's life style. He, of course, doesn't drink and is jerked back and forth by flashbacks of his Guantanamo tortures and his sexual dreams about his saviouress, Maria.



Ali is also full of repressed desire and guilt, also brought forth by his brutal interrogation. Finally, the girl, who herself can stand it no longer, takes Ali to bed and tries to get him out of the country...but...she's hit by a car.



Ali, meanwhile, living in a world increasingly surreal, sees himself, alternately, as both the tortured and the torturer. Reality comes back quickly now and he recognizes himself as an Army interrogator involved in the suicide of a terror suspect. Guilt-ridden he cuts his wrists to be sent home to his wife....who just happens to be the beautiful Maria.



Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico"

Pretty much makes me sick

R. Bagula | Lakeside, Ca United States | 08/14/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In Communist Cuba an escapee from the American marine torture camp

finds a somewhat new life.

This film is very hard to watch with torture scenes.

The dance and music is sort of a Salsa ballet of a floor show

in a night club offsets that.

The love affair develops slowly between the damaged

Arab and the Cuban woman dancer with the large heart.

Just who are Guido, Manuela and Ali?

All is really not as it seems!"