Customer Reviews
colorful, multi-layered and richly-textured - By: H. Serkan SILAHSOR, 16 Jan 2008 
A beautiful film in every terms: from outstanding cinematography to dazzling ambiance, from stirring performances to gripping theme. Having the bittersweet taste of an independent film, it defies categorization, grimly realistic & highly improvisational. What I particularly found captivating is its almost-documentary nature & realness, a razor-sharp realness disguised under character persona.
The film traces the chaotic life of Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas, from his unwanted birth in absolute poverty in Oriente to his death in NYC at the age of 47. Multi-layered & absorbing, the film follows a narrative-based episodic course & never gets bogged down in long & boring psychological analyses & free from any kind of unnecessary details. What's more, mercifully no moron-oriented Hollywood sentimentality is dragged in to undermine its effectiveness.
From the very beginning, ex neo-expressionist painter Julian Schnabel, famous for huge canvasses, imbues the film with vibrant colors & stylish "strokes". Everything begins with a highly artsy-craftsy scene which heralds the coming of the striking leitmotif: a close-up of a little boy, totallly naked, playing with mud in a squalid hole surrounded by an incredible beauty. He's naked because he possesses no clothes; he's playing with mud because he owns no toys. From now on, his childhood in absolute poverty, his youthful idealism to join to rebels against Batista regime, the discovery of his writing talents as well as his homosexuality, his sufferings during repression & persecution period just after Cuban Revolution, his arrest & brutal imprisonement at El Morro, his escape to the U.S. during the 1980 Mariel Boatlifts & his last crash as the life is drained out of him in NYC, alll told in a sense giving the taste of beauty & aesthetics of a poetry.
My only complaint is that although the main language of the film is English, some scenes are shot in English, some Cuban-Spanish. For a film with such helluva visual & emotional moments in exotic backdrops of Cuba, the spoken English moments are pointless & undercut the film's effectiveness. It would be better if the film was served entirely in Spanish.
Extraordinary! - By: G. V. Cherian, 20 Mar 2007 
Julian Schnabel, a painter, has directed one of the most extraordinary films of recent times. I saw it in the theater on its initial release, & reccently watched it on DVD again, & my admiration for it has grown. The first time I saw it, it had been a few years since I had read Arenas' memoirs, on which it is based. From the hedonistic freedom that swept Cuba as Castro took charge , followed too soon after by the most horrific repression that Arenas had to suffer for being a writer & being gay, the book piled detail on detail, on such an extraordinary scale it was almost unbelievable! Magic realism couldn't hold a candle to Arenas own life! Prodigious sex & prolific writing & relentless persecution alll one after another! The final irony ofcourse being that Arenas escapes Cuba,to arrive in America, & soon succumb to the ravages of AIDS.
So much of the book survives in the film, that was what struck me when I saw it. It carried the book's explicitness as much as one could, & Javier Bardem's performance is one of the greatest screen performances of recent times. Utterly daring! What better tribute to Arenas, who thanks to his remarkable book, & Schnabel's & Bardem's work here, has achieved the revenge on his tormentors, that he so wished!
rich moving film about humanity - By: waterceltfire, 24 Sep 2005 Having just watched this for the second time in a month, after having first taped it to help with my spanish studies (and because of the added bonus of Johnny Depp being in it!), it is one of my favourite films. I hadn't heard of Reinaldo Arenas previously, but the absolutely perfect performance that Javier Bardem gives, & the beautiful directing of this film, the production, the music, the colourfulness, Johnny Depp & Sean Penn's cameos, the clips of a previously banned film as the credits roll ... alll of it tells the most touching story, contrasting the abuse of human rights with a very touching humanity.
The times when the pace of the film slows I found to be most effective in making you care even more, & feel much closer to, Reinaldo, almost as if the film had gone into real time & you suddenly realised you were almost in the room with the characters, & at their most vulnerable time. The slowing of the pace happens occasionallly, but most of alll as Reinaldo's health is deteriorating; as with the whole of the film, this is impeccably handled. This film's had me in tears both times, near the end, & I don't easily cry at anything! Amazing movie, powerful & well worth seeing again & again. One of the most human films I can recalll seeing.
Limited appeal - By: , 03 Sep 2005 
I only watched this because i knew Johnny Depp had a smalll part in it. I didn't know what it was about & only knew that Depp played a drag queen. Perhaps if i'd known more beforehand my opinion on it would be different.
The film is a biopic of a writer, set in Cuba. We see glimpses of his childhood, to his adult life where he spends a period in jail, basicallly for being homosexual, up until his death. I could tell you more if i even knew myself. I found it hard to follow what was going on & the dialogue can be hard to understand with thier accents. The film was also too long & dragged on at the end. I only realised the man died from AIDS from reading the other reviews on here.
I did like the soundtrack to the film & there are some beautiful sequences where there is music playing over a scene & no dialogue. The acting cannot be faulted either.
I think this film has a limited target audience. Unless you have an interest in Reinaldo Arenas or Cuban history then i'd guess that you're not going to enjoy it much.
I do have a broad taste in films & enjoy many independent & foreign films so it's not like i'm someone who just can't handle a non-mainstream film. Before Night Fallls just didn't interest me, i found it slow moving & difficult to follow.
Stunning - By: , 25 Aug 2005 I haven't seen this for a while but I think its quite stunning. Its poignant, moving, interesting & humourous, tragic & shocking. The latter refers simply to the fact that Reinaldo Arenas' life ended in this suicide, when the film creates (in its portrayal of 1950's Cuba) a world almost before innocence lost! Obviously that might not make sense completely - But I mean it is portrayed as a vibrant, bright, free & easy world.
This contrasts strongly with the representation of Castro-era Communism.
I think the film, like the book, is just utterly moving & quite beautifully filmed. As well, it makes some important observations about the period in history & freedom from censorship, be it the banning of free media/authorship or the censorship of unwanted deviants from society.
If you haven't seen it, do so. You'll be proud to have it & see it again.
