Review: ‘Havana Motor Club’ richly profiles Cuba’s covert racing scene
Their cars are old, and the parts are either used, bought illegally or homemade. But the dreams of Cuba’s auto racers burn as brightly as they have since the Revolution — which considered racing elitist and dangerous — effectively drove them underground.
Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt’s documentary “Havana Motor Club” draws you into this entrenched, friendly car subculture, and shows how the promise of reforms that began in 2012 with a thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations have given scrappy enthusiasts hope that their passion will be legalized, then legitimized with the first official auto race in their homeland since 1959. Can a back-burner simmer become a successfully rolling boil?
Another racer, “Piti” Munnet, who fought off cancer and races a black ’56 Ford Victoria, wonders if lifting the embargo on cars and parts will favor racers with money, while cash-strapped racing hobbyist Jote Mais is willing to sell his ’51 Ford piece by piece to finance repeated efforts to get out of the country.
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‘Havana Motor Club’
Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes
Not rated
Playing: Arena Cinema Hollywood
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