Javier Bardem gives an incredible performance in this wrenching autobiography of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas who, in 1980, sought political asylum to the United States via his homosexuality after suffering for years under Castro's laws decrying "political dissidents and sexual deviates." Born in the north Province of Oriente in Cuba in 1943, Arenas was raised mostly by his female relatives, his father having been banished from the family early on by his mother. Before he was a teenager, Arenas was already writing (carving words on tree trunks for the lack of paper); by the 1960s, he was in Havana studying at the university and winning awards and admirers. These early scenes work best for the film, as the narrative is lean and direct, and the lovely visual attributes (courtesy cinematographers Xavier Pérez Grobet and Guillermo Rosas) clearly delineate a particular (and turbulent) time and place with astonishing skill. This picture truly looks ravishing, and director Julian Schnabel relaxes the pace to help viewers take it all in. Unfortunately, after Arenas is arrested on fatuous molestation charges--and escapes from custody, and then gets caught and is put through hell--the narrative becomes more obscure, with Schnabel relishing in artistic flourishes at the expense of the picture's immediacy. Arenas becomes the Patron Saint of Suffering and, when Reinaldo finally gets to New York City, what should've been an exhilarating moment is squashed together with his sickness and death (10 years later!). It is to Bardem's credit as an actor that the final scenes work at all, because by this point we have lost touch with the inner-workings of the artist. Putting a writer's life on film has always been a difficult task for filmmakers (the process of creating isn't always a cinematic one), but Schnabel was doing so well in the first and second acts--allowing Reinaldo's talents to bloom--that it's doubly disappointing his final curtain should play as melodrama. **1/2 from ****
Review of Before Night Falls
