Sons of Cuba

 

Joyce Carol Oates has written that whilst life could be considered as a metaphor for boxing, “boxing is only like boxing.” But for the youngsters attending the Havana Boxing Academy boxing is life. Hoping to become one of the Olympic champions that Cuba has proved so successful at producing, they live, sleep and eat boxing in the ramshackle Academy building. This gruelling regime takes its toll and tears are common: from beating your best friend in the ring, from being beaten, from the disappointment of not making the team, and from the pain of a split nose. Hovering over their lives is the presence of the man they refer to as “Commandante”, Fidel Castro. Perhaps the most disturbing sight in this well made documentary is not that of ten-year olds punching each other, but of a young boy at a primary school wearing a false beard and aping the relentless, cigar-poking speech-making of the old revolutionary. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]