Before Night Falls

sarauta

source: Antes que anochezca

It wasn't until "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" that I warmed to the work of Julian Schnabel. Before that there was "Basquiat," which I actively disliked, and then there was "Before Night Falls," which I didn't dislike exactly, but which I also didn't exactly enjoy. No complaints about the performance of Javier Bardem, before anyone knew who he was, as Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. But the film plays out as so many other biopics do, and it's pretty bleakly depressing by the time it's over. The final scenes, as we watch Arenas slowly disintegrate due to AIDS, are especially tough. You might need to be a fan either of Schnabel the director or Arenas the poet to fully appreciate this movie. It wouldn't surprise me if everyone else felt somewhat left out in the cold by it. Grade: B-

Reinaldo Arenas: Leonardo da Vinci was homosexual, so was Michelangelo, Socrates, Shakespeare, and almost every other figure that has formed what we have come to understand as beauty. It is fascinating that the socialist government in Cuba would take the same position as right-wing religious leaders in our country. I am sure that James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and others like them would not be happy to know that they are no different than Fidel Castro. This was the story of the poet Reinaldo Arenas, his mistreatment at the hands of the Cuban government, and his eventual escape to America in the Mariel boat lift; and Javier Bardem (Mar adentro, No Country for Old Men) was magnificent in the role that played almost like a documentary. The film was cinema-graphically brilliant, filmed near Cuba in the Yucatan. The soundtrack was equally impressive. Besides Bardem, it also featured Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy). Depp played a dual role as Bon Bon, a transvestite and was also Lt. Victor, the head of the prison in which Arenas was incarcerated. I am continually amazed at Depp's versatility. An outstanding Latino cast in a super film.

I went to see this film because I am a big Javier Bardem fan. I am glad he has received international recognition but I wish it had been in a film that I could consider at least good. He has done much better work in much better films. I found this one tedious and boring with an uneven, undeveloped and fuzzy script. The characters were mostly "ghostly" in their development as was the situation. I left the movie thinking that the financial producers must have been a bunch of Miami Cubans set out to get as much anti-Castro propaganda out there as possible. Wholly unsatisfying and definitely not recommendable.

"Before Night Falls" is a good movie. However, the most important point to be highlighted is the outstanding performance of Javier Bardem, in the role of Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban poet and writer. But unfortunately, the script and the direction were not in the same level of this great actor. The impression transmitted of Reinaldo Arenas in the movie is mostly of a gay artist, persecuted by a dictatorial regime not because of his ideas, but because of his behavior being gay. Even his death due to Aids is not clear in the movie. Maybe readers of this writer may find points in the script to be sympathetic with Reinaldo Arenas, but for an outsider of his biography and books, the plot does really show him as a homosexual writer persecuted by a dictatorial regime. The plan of the ideas is not emphasized in the movie. Javier Bardem deserved a better direction and script for such a performance! My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "Antes do Anoitecer" ("Before Night Falls")

Spoilers herein. The subject here is a natural sensitive who finds a layer of beauty in unexpected cracks in reality. The harder the reality, and the more unexpected niches he makes, the more sweetly surprising are the nuggets he places. But this is not a great writer, not someone who can compose. He is an artist of snippets. Now along comes Schnable, a man of similar sensibilities. He is also a man with no patience for shaping the whole. He reacts locally. But he has lots of talented friends. So what we end up with is a pot luck. Overall it is respectful, and in places it has local beauty. I knew something of Schnable, so avoided this for a while: he has found a market for an artistic philosophy based on attention deficit disorder and that's just not good enough for me. But this has Penn and Depp (Depp in two proximate roles) and any project with them is worth the investment. Depp smuggles the book out of prison in his rectum. If you know their own lives in art, you can see them presented here with no directorial filter whatsoever. Two really annoying things: the two most beautiful gems in this film are shots of the water and a remarkable balloon trip. The former is stoled from Greenaway (`Water Wrackets') and the latter directly lifted from Tarkovsky (`Andre Rublev'). This is not simple quoting. This is not fair use of a vocabulary. This is theft and is indicative of the general lack of artistic vision in this project. The DVD has a tour of Schnable's loft where he pontificates on his pieces of frozen performance art from a more confused and artistically hungry era: `Here is where I had tea with M- and slapped the teasoaked tablecloth against the canvas.' `Here is where I dragged the canvas behind a jeep.' This is for the Hallmark set which thinks it is hip because its small proverbs center on revolution, gayness and aids. Ted's Evaluation: 2 of 4 -- Has some interesting elements.

... That this film will appeal far more to a gay audience than a mainstream one ? BEFORE NIGHT FALLS follows the life story of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas who was a homosexual and thus was persecuted by Castro's regime . It's actually nice to see a movie pointing out that when it comes to homosexuality socialist regimes are no more tolerant than fascist ones or countries ruled by religious fundamentalists but the point about Reinaldo being oppressed by the state due to his sexual orientation seems hammered home too often where we see scenes of suspected homosexuals being rounded up . Toleterian regimes do not tolerate any type of art unless it's sanctioned by the party . Couldn't we have learned more about Reinaldo's poetry and how this was seen as a threat to the regime ? It would have probably made for a better story Many people have praised the performance of Spanish actor Javier Bardem as Reinaldo . I've never heard of Bardem before seeing this movie and have no idea of how difficult it is for a Spanaird to play a Cuban but I'll take everyone's word that this is a great performance . I didn't even realise that Johnny Depp played two roles in this movie but I was swept away by his role as the interrogator , so much so that I forgot it was a famous Hollywood star acting and I can't fault the performances in the movie But apart from the over emphasis on the homosexual aspects I do have a problem with the script and directing . The story is fairly episodic and disjointed and there's scenes that I didn't understand . For example Reinaldo just manages to walk out of prison which I found a bit too incredible to be taken seriously and while he's on the run he writes letters to the UN and International Red Cross - And leaves them hidden under stones ! So if a dissident is on the run in any country in the world if he leaves a message begging for help under a stone an international organisation will find it and take up his case . I didn't get that bit and there's a couple of other scenes like this which confused rather than involved me in the story

This is the story of Reinaldo Arenas, a gifted poet and novelist who was in turn, suppressed, incarcerated, and brutalized, in Castro's Cuba before gaining exile in the US. Truly, this should be a fascinating story. But, simply telling this story is not enough for director Julian Schnabel. Schnabel overwhelms the art of his subject with his own directorial artistry. We get few samples of what Arenas' gift for poetry and prose -- no sense of how he diffuses the many images of his mind's eye into his art. Instead we are bombarded with montages set to music; we are switched to and from English and Spanish for no apparent reason. The dialect of English spoken by most of the cast is so dense that you pray for the parts that are spoken in Spanish so you can read the subtitles. Director Schnabel prides himself for disregarding normal conventions and thinks nothing of whisking us from actual events into various characters' imaginations without burdening us by letting us know which is which. The result is a study in abstract art. Those who love to interpret their movies will love it. People like me who like to follow a coherent plot and hear dialogue will be bewildered and frustrated. Javier Badem is handsome as anything, but his one-note performance, despite the perceived nobility of his character, certainly didn't deserve an Academy Award nomination ahead of Cuba Gooding, Jr., among others. I found this to be a true disappointment.

As many here, I am a big fan of Javier Bardem's acting. As many here, I was sadly frustrated by the lack of dialogs in the movie. As a matter of fact, I think Javier Bardem is not as good as he is used to be because of that. Indeed, the film has mainly a sad tone, and is made with good narrator's comment but scenes of repression are not well contextualized I reckon. For instance, many times a repression takes place after some homosexual community organizes a gathering; but even then, we don't understand how, when nor with whom the party has ever taken place nor why the police got informed. Excluiding the details, I think the movie is quite a bad biography. It does not show enough of Reinaldo Arena's achievements, as it does not show how the revolution transformed itself in a huge machine of repression. Everything is suffered by the characters without any organized dialogs nor helpful situation for us. How can we, viewers, understand the changes? For instance, I didn't get a thing when Reinaldo eventually succeed in going out from jail. How come? Why? How can he recover that fast after that? Another drawback is probably the language chosen. Come on, why should the actors speak English in Cuba ? I always find ridiculous and pointless to match a cultural or historical event with another language that the one originally spoken. What about talking about American civil war with French actors in French or Spanish? That would be pointless don't you think ? Why did he chose English-American, French, Italian and Spanish actors when many Cuban excellent actors exist. At the very least, he could have picked up some Spanish actors (like Bardem)who would have imitated Cuban accent but even like that that would have been pathetic. That's too bad cause I would have loved to know a bit more about this artist.The film is somehow disappointing even if it draw my attention and caught my eye from time to time.