Strange artifact unearthed thirty years later and co-promoted by Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola: a Russian celebration of the birth of her Communist sister, Castro's Cuba. Director Mikhail Kalatozov, best known for The Cranes Are Flying (1957), was thinking in terms of an Eisensteinian epic. Yevtushenko had a hand in the script. And the Cuban location shooting circa 1963-64 makes it a valuable document of something or other. But the main attraction -- or main repulsion, according to tolerance -- is the baroque black-and-white photography: long-take tracking shots, off-balance tilts, seasickness-inducing rocking motions, wide-angle lenses that cause the screen to appear to bulge in the middle. With Luz María Collazo, José Gallardo, and Jean Bouise. (1964) — Duncan Shepherd