Before Night Falls
Directed by Julian Schnabel.
Starring Javier Bardem, Johnny Depp & Olivier Martinez.
Reinaldo Arenas was born on a farm in Cuba in 1943 and came to adulthood amid Castro’s revolution. Despite the poverty of his childhood he developed a profound literary talent. Before Night Falls is a biography based upon his memoirs and excerpts from his poems and novels.
Though Arenas was essentially apolitical his life is symptomatic of conditions under communism. Initially filled with hope for the new society, he became a pariah on account of his intellectual and behavioural marginalism, his artistic independence and homosexuality conflicting with the uniformity that is the corollary of pervasive and rigorous ideology. The gay milieu is quite plausible, raw sexuality combined with aggression and contempt, simultaneously practised and condemned by the authorities. Depp epitomises the contradiction, reprising his familiar gender-bender act as Arenas’ first male lover, a selfish predatory bisexual secret policeman (what else?), and also in a second role as a transvestite who smuggles Arenas’ manuscripts out of prison (guess how). However, while the themes of artistic and sexual freedom/oppression predominate, the film is so rambling that it is hard to say if they are really the point. Focusing on Arenas’ life as it was rather than interpreting it through some structure might contain artistic virtues but watchability is not among them. Some exceptional performances (especially Bardem in the lead) and cinematography are left hanging. Another depressingly familiar mistake is that it’s in English (heavily accented to show that they’re actually foreigners), a lowbrow technique that is doubly pointless as it occasionally switches into subtitled Spanish. The use of English is most painful during the extracts of Arenas’ poetry. Before Night Falls is not really worth seeing, a shame as the content and style are both there.
Guy
