Before Night Falls (2000)

Purely Joyful Movie!

hyped garbage

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

A film with strong and powerful moments. The movie uses some documentary footage and exposition about the revolution in Cuba and the problems that people went through, but the real story is about a writer and his struggle to find peace and recognition.It took some time for me to get invested. It bothered me a bit because the movie is narrated by the writer and you see his life since he was young. So, you would expect you to be invested right away. But, for me it took some time in first act getting in to the story because here and there stock footage would pop up and it would take me out of it. Once the main character ends up being accused for something he didn't do, the film picks up and his journey becomes riveting.I like the vintage look of this film, the colors makes it feel like the film was made in the 60's and 70's. Johnny Depp is funny playing two roles, but the actor stealing the show is Javier Bardem who is fantastic in this performance. The movie does a good job in making you understand his motives and ambitions. Even though I didn't care much about his relations, you still understand the fact that it's just how he is personally and he doesn't try to force you to like him. He just appears like himself and doesn't try to be someone he isn't. Which makes the audience respect him.The scenes in a prison were really hard hitting, especially when he is forced to be in a tiny, tiny cell. That most be horrifying, and Bardem completely made you believe what kind of a traumatic affect it would have on someone. Brilliantly made.In short, a fantastic performance all the way through (especially towards the finale), but the film is a bit unbalanced and some of the most interesting parts of the story pass by too soon. It stays a little too long on the writer's romantic life in the beginning, and unfortunately that aspect wasn't as compelling as I think the filmmakers were hoping it would be. Everything about the writers escape and the prison scenes are however great and I would still recommend checking it out.

2 months ago we were in Cuba.... I wanted to watch this film hoping to see some of the parts of the Cuba and remember my memories... But, I stop seeing the film at 48. minutes since I found the movie very anti-revolutionary :( Can one expect the opposite from a US film? Film just focused on gay issues and try to show the socialism bad! Can anybody tell that capitalism is very nice? Very good for all levels of people? or defense capitalism? Pls try to learn the system in Cuba. Still making films to show the socialism bad is funny and doesn't give to me good feelings about the director and the producers. As a second point, it's very disturbing -- in the film -- that Cuban in Cuba speak English!!! WHY??!?!? This frequently happens in many films which disturbs me too much and causes me to stop seeing the film. I'm not sure if the following is spoiler? I don't think so. I'm not against the gays of course, i know that they born that way, but we watched many films on gays.. I personally don't want to see them kissing and having sex. This is just the capitalism do; continuously making this kind of movies, etc..

Watching this movie is like slow death ! I mean it ! The story goes on very slowly and it shows nothing special. The story is about a gay Cuban novelist who is being arrested by the regime of Castro. Yes I get it and totally agree that such like can be tough and a person who lives that life can be a hero, yeah yeah yeah , I get it OK ? But not all real stories or lives are suitable for the silver screen. I'm a broadcasting and film making student so I know exactly what should be look at when one start writing a script or even more basic a storyline! The first thing and the basic thing that the writer should ask himself is that , would the audience watch this ? Would this movie be important for the audience to watch ? This is in fact the first question that audience would ask themselves before or after watching the movie , " What is there for me or What was there for me " ? Honestly , this movie has nothing to offer the audience. The story is painfully slow and boring. Very few interesting things happen , there's no climax in the story and even worse the audience are not given enough details about the character to sympathize with them or even connect with them.Overall , a terrible movie , I give it 1 out of 10. you think I'm being nasty ? well , here's a fact , this movie made only 4 million dollars at the box office , which we all know in Hollywood is a big JOKE! I'm not nasty now , am I ? Make good movies , you get good reviews !

As many here, I am a big fan of Javier Bardem's acting. As many here, I was sadly frustrated by the lack of dialogs in the movie. As a matter of fact, I think Javier Bardem is not as good as he is used to be because of that. Indeed, the film has mainly a sad tone, and is made with good narrator's comment but scenes of repression are not well contextualized I reckon. For instance, many times a repression takes place after some homosexual community organizes a gathering; but even then, we don't understand how, when nor with whom the party has ever taken place nor why the police got informed. Excluiding the details, I think the movie is quite a bad biography. It does not show enough of Reinaldo Arena's achievements, as it does not show how the revolution transformed itself in a huge machine of repression. Everything is suffered by the characters without any organized dialogs nor helpful situation for us. How can we, viewers, understand the changes? For instance, I didn't get a thing when Reinaldo eventually succeed in going out from jail. How come? Why? How can he recover that fast after that? Another drawback is probably the language chosen. Come on, why should the actors speak English in Cuba ? I always find ridiculous and pointless to match a cultural or historical event with another language that the one originally spoken. What about talking about American civil war with French actors in French or Spanish? That would be pointless don't you think ? Why did he chose English-American, French, Italian and Spanish actors when many Cuban excellent actors exist. At the very least, he could have picked up some Spanish actors (like Bardem)who would have imitated Cuban accent but even like that that would have been pathetic. That's too bad cause I would have loved to know a bit more about this artist.The film is somehow disappointing even if it draw my attention and caught my eye from time to time.