by Eleanor Mannikka
synopsis
During a 1980 concert tour in Cuba, singer Harry Belafonte was filmed both in performance, and in a long interview amounting to a monologue on his career, on the lives of men who have inspired him (Martin Luther King Jr., Paul Robeson), and on humanity's universal need to live free from oppression. In addition to the monologue, filmed under a tree, there are clips from some of Belafonte's movies, such as Buck and the Preacher, in which Belafonte and Sidney Poitier join forces with a group of Native Americans to help defend them against some low-life types. Politics does play a part in this documentary, but it could not be more quietly or evenly presented than in Belafonte's own soft-spoken way.
