Review of Before Night Falls (2000) by Mjs M — 31 Oct 2008

Julian Schnabel?s second film, Before Night Falls is the story of the openly gay Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas. Arenas faced horrible persecution despite his whole life; it?s a story worth telling but this movie screws up in a critical way: it has no idea how to handle the character?s use of language.

I think the director wanted the film to be in the character?s original Spanish, but the producers wanted it to be in English; it seems like the solution they settled on was to have half the film in English, but to randomly have it switch to subtitled Spanish with no rhyme or reason every once in a while, what?s worse, everyone speaking English does so in Cuban accents that are really thick and hard to understand.

They should have either had the whole movie in subtitled Spanish or they should have had the whole thing in accent-neutral English, the compromise they choose meant it was neither easy to watch or authentic, it?s the worst of both worlds.

Schnabel clearly seems to have realized he made a mistake, because he went to great lengths to film his next film, The Diving Bell and Butterfly, in setting appropriate French the whole way through. That major peeve aside this is all right, Javier Bardem gives a great performance and the story is powerful.