High life
Cuba liberals
Taki
flew to Washington last week in order to attend the premiere of the most moving documentary I have ever seen. It is a film about the country with more political prisoners per capita than any other, the Marxist paradise of Castro's Cuba.
The title of the documentary is Nobody Listened and if you come across it — I guarantee it won't play on Channel 4 — skip dinner with the Queen if need be, but don't miss it. The film is not a polemic, in fact anything but. It's about the cruelty of the man the liberals and radical chic of Hollywood and of the Fourth Estate have always presented as a hero, and the un- speakable tortures he imposed on the magnificent men and women who dared oppose his totalitarian rule. Most of the victims were simple people, peasants who wished to be free, or those among the tyrant's supporters who turned against him when he showed his true colours.
Unlike other documentaries of its kind, Nobody Listened is not a bitter film. The men and women in it have endured such deprivations and tortures that they emerge almost saint-like. The baths in urine and excrement, the electric shocks to the genit- als, the shootings and mediaeval floggings are described in an almost matter-of-fact way. Some people in the audience were moved to tears by the bravery of the Cuban dissidents. Especially when one of the victims says that when death becomes so natural, fear disappears. What has not disappeared since the showing of this wonderful film is my sense of anger with those who try and present Castro and his gang as members of the human race. That the bearded butcher sure ain't. What he is is an expert at seducing third-rate artists and writers by inviting them to Cuba, picking up their tabs and getting them women — and of course men. During the late Sixties Castro had half Of Hollywood down there, and arch-phonies like Warren Beatty sang his praises for their supper. Massaging the egos of sol- disant arty types continues to be his modus operandi. Only two months ago, Interview magazine, a celebrity-stroking rag I am ashamed to admit I once wrote for, ran a long piece on the Cuban Film Festival that made the tinpot tyrant and his henchmen sound like Athenian philosophers of the Golden Age. Not to be outdone, Vanity Fair, the glossy monthly that glorifies the rich and famous, especially if they're desig- ners and advertise with Conde Nasty, included two articles about the modern utopia of Dr Castro. As the film does not show any beautiful gardens or designer clothes, I don't expect the editors of the two organs I just mentioned ever to see it, but one could lure them to it by giving a star-studded party following the showing. The trouble is stars do not like to hear the ugly truth, so I guess the advance publicity should pretend it's a film about South Africa.
And speaking of South Africa, I didn't see at the premiere any of the rabble which has photo-opportunities each day in front of the embassy of the only African country with a free press. No Kennedys, no Amy Carter, no Christopher Dodd, no Tutu (he was at a cocktail party). Among those I did see was the great Armando Valladares, the poet Castro tortured and jailed for 22 years, and Huber Matos, the butcher's ex-comrade-in-arms whom he kept in solit- ary for 20. Jeane Kirkpatrick gave a brief address and that was it. No fanfare, no celebrities, no publicity.
In a lighter vein, my spies in the nation's capital tell me that it was devious Deaver Who helped Armand Hammer infiltrate the Reagan set. Hammer had been trying for Years to worm himself in with the President but had only succeeded in becoming Prince Charles's best American buddy. Then the devious one went to work on Nancy the First, who incidentally did not attend my favourite film either, and presto, Hammer- and-Sickle and his termites have been at work ever since. But not to worry. I see that Queen Nancy has been getting along well with the Tsarina, which means peace is at hand. I am only worried that Ronald Reagan might wave a piece of paper upon his triumphal return this week, a paper that Nancy and the Hammer have pushed him to accept. But not wearing a stiff high collar and a morning coat might make a difference.
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