Live Life Team
This is a documentary sort of film based on a drama. It’s the story of the life of Reinaldo Arenas. Arenas is a homosexual writer who was exiled from his native country of Cuba. He wrote a memoir of his life’s journeys, “Before Night Falls,” upon which this movie is based.
Arenas is played by Javier Bardem and the film follows him in his travels from abject poverty to studying at the university in Cuba. It depicts very realistically the sexual revolution as it played out in Havana, as well as the homosexual subculture in which Arenas found himself immersed.
The film details the persecution Arenas was subjected to under the strict policies of Fidel Castro against writers and most especially gay ones. Arenas is thrown into prison and this film lets the viewer see just how harsh those prison conditions can be in Cuba. But what makes this film especially good is that the acting is done so well that we can see much of Arenas’ fighting spirit as he remains courageous despite adversity. He continues to write from behind the walls of his prison, and eventually publishes his work abroad. He obtains his release but is deported to America, where he embarks on a whole new set of struggles, including the fact that he is now battling AIDS — far from home and family and any sort of support structure.
Definitely a captivating film that seemed to run very quickly. The film also stays true to the book, something you don’t always see in today’s movie industry.
