Blame It on Fidel (France, 2007) April 22, 2008

At the film's epicenter is Anna, a feisty Parisian girl forced to assimilate cataclysmic changes when her parents decide to devote themselves full time to activism. It is 1970-71, and Anna's father is fighting to redistribute wealth in Chile, while her mother researches a book on women's abortion. Meanwhile, Anna must adjust to refugee nannies with strange cooking habits, a cramped apartment filled with scruffy revolutionaries, and the humiliation of no longer being allowed to attend her beloved catechism class. The fun of 'Blame It on Fidel' is watching Anna sort through the array of contradictory ideologies flying at her--from communism to Greek mythology, from Vietnamese folktales to women's rights. The film's emotional power arises from Anna's transformation from close-minded bourgeois princess to open-hearted truth seeker and her gradual internalization of what her parents, albeit clumsily, are trying to accomplish.