BEFORE NIGHT FALLS
|
Title: Before Night Falls
Year: 2000 Johnny Depp plays: Lt. Victor/Bon Bon Directed by: Julian Schnabel Written by: Reynaldo Arenas (memoir); Cunningham O'Keefe, Lázaro Gómez Carriles, and Julian Schnabel (screenplay) Genre: Biography/Drama MPAA Rating: R Runtime: 133 minutes |
PLOT
The story of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas.
Raised in the Oriente Province of Cuba in the 1940s, Arenas began his life-long
love of the sea and water. Leaving home as a young adolescent, he moves to
Havana where he finds himself swept up in the revolutionary spirit and joins a
circle of writers and artists. His first novel, "Singing from the Well," is
published in Cuba, but as Castro's oppressive regime gathers force, Arenas'
homosexuality and political writing make him a target. After being falsely
accused of molestation, Arenas is arrested and imprisoned at El Morro.
Eventually released from prison after dehumanizing treatment, Arenas flees Cuba
in the 1980 Mariel Harbor boatlift. Moving to New York with his friend Lazaro
Gomez Carilles, Arenas' hopes for a new life are destroyed by AIDS, and he dies
in 1993, at the age of 45.
Source: Yahoo! Movies
QUOTES
Reinaldo Arenas: My name, for the moment, is Reinaldo Arenas.
Reinaldo: What do you want?
Cuban Police Officer: What do I want... First of all, I want Carlos to
frisk this guy.
Reinaldo: But he's not even dressed.
Police Officer: What's your name?
Reinaldo: My name? Franz Kafka.
Police Officer: Hm. You think I am ignorant?
[Reinaldo shakes his head]
Police Officer: Have any of you ever heard of a Camp called La Isla de Joventud?
[Everyone declines]
Police Officer: Then maybe you can tell me, when's the last time you took it up
your ass.
Reinaldo: The last time? Oh, I don't remember.
Police Officer: No?
Reinaldo: But I remember the last time you did.
Police Officer: When was that?
Reinaldo: Maybe the last time you bent over to tie your boots.
Reinaldo's mother: Reinaldo, would you be sad if I died?
Reinaldo Arenas: [narrating] Leonardo da Vinci was homosexual, so was Michelangelo, Socrates, Shakespeare, and almost every other figure that has formed what we have come to understand as beauty.
Reinaldo Arenas: Walking along streets that collapse from crumbling sewers. Past buildings that you jump to avoid because they will fall on you. Past grim faces that size you up and sentence you. Past closed shops, closed markets, closed cinemas, closed parks, closed cafes. Sometimes showing dusty signs, justifcations: "CLOSED FOR RENOVATION," "CLOSED FOR REPAIRS." What kind of repairs? When will these so-called renovations be finished? When at last will they begin? Closed... closed... closed... everything closed. I arrive, open the countless padlocks and run up the temporary stairs. There she is, waiting for me. I pull off the cover, and stare at her dusty, cold shape I clean of fthe dust and caress her. With my hand, delicately, I wipe clean her back, her base and her sides. Infront of her, I feel desperate and happy. I run my fingers over her keyboard and suddenly it all starts up. With a tinkling sound the music begins, little by little, then faster; now full speed. Walls, trees, streets, cathedrals, faces and beaches. Cells, mini- cells, huge cells. Starry nights, bare feet, pines, clouds. Hundreds, thousands, millions of parrots. A stool, a climbing plant, they all answer my call, all come to me. The walls recede, the roof vanishes, and you float quite naturally. You float uprooted, dragged off, lfited high. Transported, immortalized, saved. Thanks to that subtle, continuous rhythm, that music, that incessant tap-tap.
