Before Night Falls
"The Best Film Of 2000" -Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
One of the most universally acclaimed films of the year, Before Night Falls appeared on over 75 "Ten Best" lists and features Academy Award nominee Javier Bardem in a "mesmerizing and inspired performance!" (Rex Reed, The New York Observer)
Julian Schnabel (Basquiat) directs this incredible journey through the life and work of the late Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. Victimized by a government that banned his books and jailed him for a crime he didn't commit, Reinaldo endured unspeakable persecution in a courageous stand against censorship and oppression. Without a country but not without integrity, he fled to America where he continued to fight for personal expression and produced a stirring body of work.
Featuring a dual performance by Johnny Depp, Before Night Falls is a tribute to the liberating power of art... and one man's undying passion for life.
Member Reviews
Sincere, but flawed. - RobBC
Schnabel’s film is saturated with brilliant colours and a mesmerizing score composed of classical piano, mellow strings and hot Latin beats. He combines straightforward narrative with languorous passages of visual poetry which takes the viewer from sun-washed beaches to the dimly lit filth of a stone cell to a freezing tenement in New York. Using old newsreels and contemporary Mexican locations, he recreates post-revolutionary Cuba and shows it to be a contradictory mix of kinetic energy and spiritual torpor laced with an edgy sexuality. Being openly gay, it seems, was both an attempt to integrate into the fledgling society and an act of political defiance which was not limited to those living on the fringe as a naked nighttime romp with a cadre of horny soldiers attests. Unfortunately, the last half of the film gets stalled by repetitious scenes and a final coda that seems to go on far longer than it should. Furthermore, although Javier Bardem’s powerhouse performance shines throughout, the bizarre cameos by Sean Penn and Johnny Depp come across as superfluous and gimmicky. Despite its flaws, "Before Night Falls" remains an honest and respectful tribute.Not for everyone but rewarding - vadim
Before Night Falls is a rewarding cinematic experience, in that we learn about an individual who feels outcasted and alienated from his soceity due to him being both a writer and homosexual during Castro's reign. Javiar Bardem gives an astonishing performance and should have come away with the oscar. Don't go into this film looking for plot because it's mostly a charatcer study of an indvidual trying to make sense of his life and getting by in communist Cuba.Work of Art - Usman
Julian Schnabel's second effort after his masterful Basquiat is another portrait of a fallen artist struck down in his prime but instead of the world of art, we journey into the realm of literature. Reinaldo Arenas is mostly unheard of in this country but this film's greatest asset will be to encourage people to seek out his work in order to, on some tangential level, gain access to the man. As with his earlier effort, Schnabel mixes his painterly past with the auspices of the biopic to create one of the most fascinating portraits of a writer put to film. I was privileged to see this film during the last New York Film Festival and this film although linear in telling, following Reinaldo from practically cradle to grave, we are presented with expressionistic episodes of his life as he becomes initiated to sex, finds his calling when he proves adept at writing, and his most important and ironically fatal decision to engage in homosexual liaisons at a time and place where the practice was looked down upon and ultimately his work and life suffered for it. Never demeaning or lurid, Reinaldo's life is looked upon with a untarnished and honest eye where his rich prose overcame his meager surroundings. A remarkable achievement on every level from the use of archival footage integrated into the narrative to the use of an up to the minute soundtrack (the beautiful Lou Reed/Laurie Anderson cello track `Rouge' during a Cuban club scene) in a period piece, Before Night Falls is one of the best films of the year.
Member Reviews
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Sincere, but flawed. - RobBC
Schnabel’s film is saturated with brilliant colours and a mesmerizing score composed of classical piano, mellow strings and hot Latin beats. He combines straightforward narrative with languorous passages of visual poetry which takes the viewer from sun-washed ...Not for everyone but rewarding - vadim
Before Night Falls is a rewarding cinematic experience, in that we learn about an individual who feels outcasted and alienated from his soceity due to him being both a writer and homosexual during Castro's reign. Javiar Bardem gives an astonishing performance ...Work of Art - Usman
Julian Schnabel's second effort after his masterful Basquiat is another portrait of a fallen artist struck down in his prime but instead of the world of art, we journey into the realm of literature. Reinaldo Arenas is mostly unheard of in this country but ...