Before Night Falls has a lot of potential as it strives to touch on themes largely ignored by most films. It plays many interesting and unique notes but I’m not sure it produces a melody. I’m going to focus on three things (I’ve-manipulated-their-names-so-there’s-an-alliteration:): plot, poetry, and path.

By plot I mean the sequence of events, i.e. what actually happens. I’m specifically interested in the dreaminess of many scenes. One prime example is the dream (?) Rey has of his mom as he’s in jail. It’s clear the creators are trying to get the effect of “viewer can’t tell what’s real from imaginary” which to be honest is usually a cool device and adds cerebralness to the film. Usually the flavor of this device is along the lines of “was the whole film actually just a dream” or “is the protagonist still in the dream” (Inception), but with Before Night Falls it’s more like every other scene could be a dream since you don’t really know why what’s happening is happening. For example here are some things that were super unclear to me when they happened:

• Did Rey actually make it to Florida on the inner tube (yes eventually we get the answer)? Why did he immediately cut himself? Where did he go afterwards?
• How does Rey meet Lazaro?
• What really happens between Rey and Lt Victor?
• How does Pepe suddenly show up out of nowhere with the propane? Why did the lock him in the cabinet, like what was their plan really? Leave him there indefinitely?
• What happened to that manuscript Rey put in the roof? Did that really happen?

I know what everyone is going to say: the questions are supposed to be left unanswered, there’s supposed to be ambiguity, it adds to the film, etc. But I can’t help but feel someone took the film’s completed script (without any dream stuff) and then just arbitrarily poked holes in it to force it to feel more “artsy.”  It’s not the same as the ambiguity in say 2001: A Space Odyssey which has the effect of “hmm I wonder what this signifies?”; or in Un Chien Andalou which is the extreme of “is there value in absolute meaninglessness?”; in Before Night Falls, it’s more of “wait, what?” (and not as a good “wait what”, like “wait….whaaaat” where your jaw drops but more of just like a super crisp “wait what” and you’re just annoyed but again not the annoyance that makes you think deeply like in Un Chien Andalou, err this is hard to articulate without bringing easy criticism upon myself). I nonetheless applaud the film for doing something different. I’d much rather be quipping about it’s dream sequences than complaining that it never goes beyond a mainstream film’s comfort zone.

The second thing is poetry. Obviously Rey is a writer and a poet, so poetry is naturally incorporated into the film. I really appreciate the beginning and ending poetry, but I would’ve liked more throughout the film. We know that Rey is writing but we don’t really know what. I feel the film could have done more to explore the depth and content of Rey’s work. It does a good and interesting job connecting the motivation for writing with the Cuban politics at the time, but it does little beyond that (with regards to his writing). Similarly it does a good job connecting the problem of (literary) beauty for a dictatorship, but I wish it did more exploring what that actual beauty is or could be.

The third thing is path. In the beginning of the film Rey leaves to join the revolution. We see him jump in the back of the truck. Then the next scene is him coming out of a lecture, now totally disillusioned and critical of the revolution. I wish we could’ve seen this transformation. What actually happened during that time period? Did he form views about the government or was he just ostracized for his homosexuality or perhaps his writing or both? What then led him to attend university? We know at the end of the film that he has opinions on the difference between communism and capitalism but I wish it tracked that evolution more.