Flak Magazine: Review of Before Night Falls, 2-01-01

Exiled Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas wrote “Antes que anochezca” (“Before Night Falls”) before committing suicide in the latter stages of AIDS in New York City in 1990. As the sun set on Arenas, his final work weaves a poetic, autobiographical account of his life and experiences in Revolution- and Castro-era Cuba: a gay man initially embraced as a revolutionary, Arenas was later tortured, hunted, marginalized and ultimately shipped alongside criminals and other homosexuals into exile in the United States. The title of Arenas’ book, as well as the movie by Julian Schnabel (of Basquiat fame), evokes the fleeting moment as the glowing light of dusk turns to opaque night.

Schnabel remains extremely faithful to the actual events of Arenas’ life as well as the poetic prose quality of the author's body of work, meshing history and fiction into a tremendously poignant and mesmerizing film. Before Night Falls sheds light on the Cuba of the last half-century much in the same way Elián did: through a captivating and tragic personal story.

Schnabel tracks Arenas, played with spellbinding charisma by Spanish actor Javier Bardem (Jamón, Jamón, Live Flesh), from dirt-poor childhood through heady adolescence to an inauspicious and introspective adulthood. The common thread running through the film is Arenas’ determination to publish his work, risking his life at every juncture to allow his opposition to the persecutions of the Castro regime to be heard. Although American audiences may be attracted to Before Night Falls as a chance to catch Johnny Depp in drag, the film stands on its own as a narrative, made even more powerful by the truth of the story and the beauty of Arenas’ writings, which are incorporated into the film.

Engagingly choppy cinematography effectively moves the audience through the various stages of Arenas’ life, each marked by a different set of secondary characters and environment. The story moves at a good clip through the part of Arenas’ life spent in Cuba, while the New York City epilogue drags, unfortunately (though necessarily) tearing the audience away from the scene and pace that Schnabel so brilliantly established in the first part of the movie.

The film takes on a mestizo quality in a variety of ways. Actual news clips from the Cuban Revolution occasionally jump out of the stylized cinematography that Schnabel has assembled, moving the viewer closer to reality. Bardem’s performance as Arenas is stunning; his eye-catching physical presence on the screen is as sublime as Arenas’ poetry. Bardem’s movements and facial expressions alone tell a compelling story. Allowed the occasional moment to slip into Spanish, however — when reciting poetry or in spontaneous conversations on the street — Bardem assumes Arenas completely.

The most striking problem with Before Night Falls is unquestionably the language: Cubans speak Spanish, not English with a Spanish accent. The distracting alternation of languages is annoying. Sean Penn’s painful accent alone is enough to make anyone who has ever heard Spanish cringe. It is unfortunate that this movie could not have been produced entirely in Spanish, with asides in English for the sporadic encounters where they are warranted. The extra effort it takes to read subtitles would have been well worth hearing the dialogue spoken in Cuban-accented Spanish. While this blending of cultures admittedly makes Before Night Falls more accessible to an international audience, it plainly detracts from the cohesion of the film.

Aside from the language distraction, Schnabel and Bardem (as it is clear that the two are equal parts of this film) tell a striking story of the Cuban Revolution and the treatment of homosexuals, writers, artists and Cuban society in general during this period. The film stands out as a textbook of fine filmmaking in its bright, sunny colors juxtaposed with muddy, washed tones; its sound mix, which excels both in music and in ambient detail; and its unique cinematography. Before Night Falls is a brilliant and poetic cinematic metaphor for Arenas’ life work.

— Sara J. Brenneis (sara at flakmag dot com)