APRIL 18, 2008 - VOL. 1, ISSUE 11

In February, Fidel Castro resigned as president of Cuba. He stepped aside to be succeeded by his brother, Raúl. This doesn't mean that Havana is a hot vacationing spot for Americans. At this point, it means very little. Fidel Castro and his ideas are alive.

A young Castro once said, “There is no need for people with a lack of a revolutionary mind.” Reinaldo Arenas had a revolutionary mind. He fought for Castro. As a young man, he supported the revolution that instated Castro. Most importantly, he was also an incredible poet.

In Julian Schnabel’s beautiful film depicting the life of Arenas, who is played by Javier Bardem, the visuals capture Arenas’ poetic view on life. Schnabel paints a portrait of the dirt and water that surrounds him as a child. He captures the awkward phase when Arenas attended school as a young man. Most importantly, the film perfectly illustrates the solace that Arenas sought in the sexual revolution.

At times, it’s hard to digest the vast promiscuity of Arenas. But through Before Night Falls, the viewer can see that for Arenas, the only freedom from the oppressive Castro regime was through two things: art and sex. Arenas was one in a large group of homosexual men, seeking free love. While some of his exploits are merely for pleasure, you can tell that the man is storing all of these experiences in the back of his head, all to be utilized in his art. Arenas had a revolutionary mind. To the dismay of Castro, Arenas, like thousands of other men, had a mind that was also enshrouded with homosexual thoughts and feelings.

The Castro regime had laws against “extravagance,” “vagrancy,” and “ideological diversionism.” They also had laws supporting the development of family. Arenas was one in thousands who had to applaud the law, despite being thoroughly against it. His writings, published in the late 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, led him to suffer political persecution. He was arrested, fled, and was arrested again for “molesting two boys,” who bullied him on the beach.

The film shows the systematic arresting of gays and the severe mistreatment of Arenas and other homosexuals in prisons. He was thrown into solitary confinement and describes the prison as “a concentration camp for homosexuals.” Even in the prison, however, he finds refuge in his writing. He is paid by the prisoners a minimal fee to write letters for them. He says that he never wrote more in his entire life.

When he is set free, he eventually manages to find refuge in the United States with his long-time lover, Lázaro Gómez Carriles, who he taught how to write. He lives in New York City, eating baby food. One particularly beautiful scene occurs when Arenas experiences his first snowfall while riding in the back of a convertible with the top down.

Arenas committed suicide in 1990. He sat in his small New York apartment with Carriles. It is very clear by the swollen purple spots that covered his body that he has been diagnosed with AIDS. He asks Carriles to kill him. He lied on his couch, still, with an “I Heart NY” bag covering his face. It would be sad to think of Arenas dying of AIDS and one could point to his promiscuity as the culprit, but it’s clear by his mentality that Arenas doesn’t regret it. His sex life was his liberation and provided him a world of beauty to live in.

Castro, as an individual, played a very minimal part in the film. Schnabel only shows an archive shot of him as a young man, standing in everything that makes him a recognizable figure: his cigar, his hat, and his camouflage. His presence, however, is felt throughout the film. In the drunken parties and sexual encounters, you feel the tension to keep it all quiet. You feel his presence in the dirt of the prison and in the ferocity of the guards. Castro is the face that accompanies the oppression—someone for the oppressed to place the blame and someone for the soldiers to praise.

This pattern isn’t Castro specific. A dictator becomes a dictator when he oppresses people who they find different. In many cases, the dictator is oppressing a group of people who supported him to begin with. Even many Nazi supporters were oppressed just for looking or behaving a certain way. A vast group of homosexuals, Arenas included, supported the fall of Fulgencio Batista and instated Castro as the new president. Castro spit in the faces of those who thought or viewed life differently and forced them to thank him for it.

Before Night Falls is a beautiful film, primarily because of the people behind it. The cinematographers, Xavier Grobet and Guillermo Rosas, make the tragedies more tragic and amplify the emotions just by catching the right angle. The score by Carter Burwell is gorgeous, but I blame Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson—who are idols of mine—for creating songs that force me close to tears. Javier Bardem is incredible. The man can play a college boy, an older man in prison, and a man close to death. His aging talents reflect those of Orson Welles in Citizen Kane. The film also features short, yet incredible, performances by Johnny Depp and Sean Penn. Also, the screenplay wouldn’t be as authentic, organic, or moving without having Lázaro Gómez Carriles, Arenas’ student and lover until death, as one of the primary authors.

In the eyes of Arenas, sex is representative of life. The film weaves his literature, his sex life, and his happiness. It counterbalances the Cuban Revolution with the Sexual Revolution while illustrating Arenas’ three loves: his typewriter, his youth, and the beauty that lies within sexual promiscuity. Regardless, the movie proves that it’s a cruel world that we live in. The beauty within the mind of Arenas died under a plastic “I Heart NY” bag while Castro still sits behind his cigar, merely a pop culture icon for a new generation’s television set.