Gavras’s film is a delicately constructed coming of age story, featuring a grandstand performance from its youthful protagonist Nina Kervel-Bey as Anna de la Mesa. It takes the history of post-68, giving it a sly twist by presenting it through the eyes of a bourgeois child who is horrified at her parents’ slide into political radicalism. The premise allows for both humour and profundity. Anna’s home is taken over by bearded Chilean exiles. Her mother writes a book defending abortion, with her interviews taking place in their home. Her original nanny is an anti-communist Cubana (hence the title), but the last one is an exile from Vietnam. Her parents give up their fine home when her father gives up his job as a lawyer and the family moves into a small flat. Anna has to overcome peer pressure, and her own class prejudices in order to understand why her parents have done what they have done. The narrative is interwoven with the fate of Salvador Allende. His downfall at the end of the film, seen on a flickering black and white TV, is the moment that Anna recognises the import of her father’s struggle and makes her peace with him. The film succeeds in marrying politics and the personal with a rare assurance, anchored by a performance of beguiling maturity from its young star.
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