May 26, 2006

By PHILIP WUNTCH / The Dallas Morning News

Andy Garcia hopes that The Lost City will clear a few things up.

Deborah Turner / Al Día Cuban-born Andy Garcia says he'll never return to his native land as long as Castro is there.

"The biggest misconception about my country's history is that the Cuban Revolution was a peasant revolution," he says during a recent visit. "Being an underdog uprising makes it seem so romantic. Actually, it was a revolution of the middle class and upper middle class, and that's the way The Lost City presents it. Atrocious, horrifying, violent acts were committed."

Known for such disparate films as Ocean's Eleven, When a Man Loves a Woman and The Godfather III, Mr. Garcia directed, composed the music for and plays the leading role in The Lost City. Adapted from Guillermo Cabrera Infante's novel of Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, the film opens today.

He and co-star Enrique Murciano, visiting Dallas in The Lost City's behalf, were affable, chatty and enjoyed a good-natured rapport with each other even when discussing weighty issues

"Andy likes to think of the film as an anthem, but it's not just a Cuban anthem," says Mr. Murciano, 32, known to television fans as Without a Trace's Danny Taylor.

"I want it to speak to every immigrant," amends Mr. Garcia. "There's a universal theme to having to leave the land you cherish. It's an homage to all our parents and grandparents who were immigrants."

The film, which Mr. Garcia nurtured through 16 years of on-and-off financing, was shot in 35 days in the Dominican Republic. The schedule consisted of 16-hour workdays, six days a week. Despite a lack of perks, Mr. Garcia managed to cast Bill Murray as an enigmatic writer and Dustin Hoffman as gangster kingpin Meyer Lansky. Each worked for scale.

"Both Dustin and Bill are friends of mine. Dustin only had to work two days, and he told me he'd do it if I went to his daughter's wedding. I was happy to do so. Dustin told me I was a hit at the wedding, and he'd gladly do the film."

Mr. Murray and Mr. Garcia are golfing buddies, and Mr. Garcia sent his friend a script.

"Bill called me immediately, said he'd just read the script and that he thought no one would ever go see the movie but he still wanted to do it. Bill and Dustin are both such American originals. I love them. Look back at Dustin's career. He went from playing Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate to Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, the best back-to-back performances ever."

Mr. Garcia says Mr. Murray's character is one of the most difficult in the film.

"He's known only as The Writer, and he's the voice of the author, G. Cabrera Infante. He appears throughout the film, commenting on the absurdity of my character's life. He's part Shakespearean fool, part court jester and part Jiminy Cricket. I knew Bill could bring it off."

Mr. Garcia relishes the reaction the film received at the Miami Film Festival. Many audience members had left their native Cuba during the revolution.

"It was extraordinary. It was like showing Schindler's List to Holocaust survivors. They were my greatest audience and also my toughest critics. They had been there." One woman even retreated to the theater lobby and fainted, he says.

"It was a visceral experience for her. It opened up wounds as well as a profound nostalgia."

Mr. Garcia, 50, has been married for 24 years and has four children. He fled from Cuba with his family when he was 5 years old and grew up in Miami.

"We had been fairly comfortable in Cuba, and now we had very little. But it was a wonderful, exciting time of my life. We lived in a part of Miami that was heavily Jewish. They welcomed us very warmly."

Still, he has never returned to Cuba.

"I have preserved everything in my memory. I play Cuban music all the time, and my mind races back to the smells, the sounds, the texture of the air. I feel like I could touch it. I love America, and I love my native land. But I will never go back as long as Castro is there."