Before Night Falls
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VHS Movie Reviews of Before Night Falls
Movie Review: Transports You
Summary: 5 Stars
"Before Night Falls" recounts the incredible life of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, played with great sensitivity by Spanish actor Javier Bardem. Born a peasant in the 1930's, Arenas had the great misfortune of being a gay writer in a country that considered art and homosexuality to be counter-revolutionary. "Before Night Falls" is based on his memoir and relates his imprisonment in Cuba and subsequent exodus to the United States. Despite this persecution, Arenas' work flourished and was published widely, albeit mostly outside of Cuba.Director Julian Schnabel is a well-known "neo-expressionist" painter; accordingly, he is able to bring an artist's understanding and sensibility to the story. His prior film was "Basquiat," about the 1980's graffiti artist. Although Schnabel seems to be limiting himself to portraits of artists, the two films are very disparate. Specifically, "Before Night Falls" is much grander in scope and incorporates more directorial flourishes than does "Basquiat." Despite the epic sweep of the film, Schnabel successfully tells Arenas' very personal and heart-rending story. Another major asset of the film is the cinematography and ambiance; vibrant colors and people populate the film. The viewer is transported to 1960s Cuba; you can feel the humidity and the pulse of the Mambo music.
Javier Bardem gives an astonishing performance, for which he deservedly received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor. For the role, he was required to learn Cuban-Spanish as well as English. The DVD extras include a 7 minute interview with Arenas, and it's apparent that Bardem nails the look and speech of the artist, without reverting to a simple impersonation. Although most of the actors are of Latin descent, two big American stars have small roles: Johnny Depp has hilarious joint roles as a Cuban transvestite and a Cuban general, and Sean Penn plays a peasant farmer, rather convincingly too. The only minor debit of the film is that it's a tad over-long and could have used a bit more editing. However, overall, "Before Night Falls" is a superb film that perfectly captures another time and another place. Most highly recommended.
Extras: The extras include an interesting commentary track with Schnabel and Bardem, a short behind-the-scenes documentary filmed by Schnabel's daughter, and an interview with Arenas conducted in 1984 after he immigrated to the U.S.
Movie Review: Almost Completely Lacking Any Depth
Summary: 2 Stars
I will warn you first that I watched this movie only *after* reading the book, and I suppose that almost definitely clouds my judgement to some degree.Having said that, this movie is a purely super-superficial scratching of the hints of the surface of the memoirs of Reinaldo Arenas, almost completely devoid of any of the power and richness of the book. My wife, who had not read "Before Night Falls" watched with me, and her comment was, "Why should I care about this guy?" Based soley on the film, it was a fair question.
The movie shows Arenas in a light that has the interesting effect of making him seem "better" and "worse" than he really was. Both the ravenous (and occasionally paedophilic) sexual appetite of the man is missing from the movie, as is a fair and moving depiction of the miserable hardship and persecution he suffered through. The strengths of the book are completely wasted here, as the vivid picture Arenas painted of the homosexual community in 1950s and 1960s Havana is barely touched on, and the political repression going on at the time is only hinted at. Additionally, as far as an accurate portrayal of a life, so many things are added and omitted as to make the movie virtually unreconizable as a cinematic depiction of Arenas' memoirs.
So, what is left is an overlong movie full of undeveloped characters whose connections with each other are unclear, and a plot that you kinda-sorta are able to follow, but the sum total is "Who cares?" I do have to give kudos to Javier Bardem, however, for a fine performance, doing the very best with the little he had to work with.
It's all unfortunate, because it was a really deep, impressive book...I suggest you drop the dollars for that and don't waste your time on this film.
Movie Review: GayDar at work
Summary: 3 Stars
A look at Cuba before, during and after the revolution from the perspective of a self-tortured artist with incredible GayDar powers. While not particularly sensational, Before Night Falls demanded my attention by never being predictable. The matter-of-fact voice over and subtely strong performance of Javier Bardem as Reinaldo Arenas make the film powerful. The DVD special features could have been better with the smallest
effort, but instead it seemed the poorly edited segments were added at the last minute. Too bad.
Michael Duranko
www.bootism.com
Movie Review: before night falls
Summary: 1 Stars
This movie was terrible in that it had explicit male to male sex scenes that I didn't need to see with my friends and nude male bodies and no sub titles and spanish? only for about half of the movie. Not entertaining at all.Movie Review: Cant understand what hes saying
Summary: 1 Stars
The story line is good, but im not going to bore you with what its about as all the reviews seem to tell you. If you want to know what its like then read this review!First let me start by saying if your a Johnny Depp fan and thats the only reason you want to watch this, dont bother, he only gets like 10 minutes of screen time somewhere near the end.
I liked the idea of this film but there were just too many problems with it that made it very hard to like.
Firstly the narrator has such a strong accent and doesnt open his mouth at all when he speaks that its almost impossible to hear or interpret what is being said. I, like many other people I know who have seen this film, was forced to watch it with subtitles. Dont get me wrong im not "dissing" subtitles, but i just didnt excpect it and its so fustrating.I dont mean to complain and be negative, because I like to try and be optimistic about films, but this is clearly a big problem.
Secondly there are so many pointless scenes which just have no relation to the story and after a while it just gets really boring and confusing.
Also some scenes are quite disturbing so not for the faint hearted!