A former revolutionary society is in pain: a Cuban couple fights to survive in a small village.

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Molasses is a brown, thick substance. Melaza is the name of the fictitious village on the former sugar producer Cuba, where sugar production is long since history. No alternatives were developed; a run-down but intact factory remains outside the village as a symbolic reminder of what was and what may come again. The village certainly hopes so, even as they try to keep their heads above water. Mónica and Aldo are such a couple. They live with an overweight daughter and Mónica’s paraplegic mother in hut made of corrugated iron. Mónica is the sugar factory’s last employee, even though she has nothing to do. Aldo teaches at a primary school that itself seem closed.

Carlos Lechuga's view of Cuba is far from the revolutionary idyll: social decay, inexistent job prospects, absurd laws, arbitrary authorities, individual poverty, class systems and a power elite. Lechuga understands his craft, creating a slow, dense atmosphere, leaving the audience enough time to feel the leaden burden of the characters' situation. His tempo is slightly higher than, say, José Luis Valles Workers, but his eye is just as precise. His work slowly but surely develops a level of pressure that aptly conveys desperation in the search for opportunity in a situation where there is none.