Before Night Falls

Aroview: The life and times of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem) told as a florid visual collage - dream, memory and history merging on the brush of painter-turned-director Schnabel, echoing the approach of his debut BASQUIAT.

Arenas, a pro-Castro revolutionary who was later jailed for his flaunted artistic ambitions and homosexuality, eventually fled to New York in 1979, where he died in genteel poverty from AIDS ten years later. While wholeheartedly embracing the spirit of the poet’s compelling story, this comes up a little short on substance, though is littered throughout with memorable images.

NZ International Film Festival 2001

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