day 27 - Before Night Falls

OK film fans, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about our favorite foreign films. I included in my list films like The Discreet Charms of the Bourgeoisie and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but I also listed tonight's film. Unfortunately, my memory did not serve me well and I'm embarrassed to acknowledge that, while set in Cuba, it was in fact not a foreign language film. However, it is still one of my Top 10 films of all time and is the perfect film for me to explain in part why this little experiment is so cathartic and, now more than ever, important for me.

Before Night Falls, by the gifted painter and director Julian Schnabel, is an impressionistic biopic of Cuban poet and novelist, Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem, in his breakout role), from his childhood in Oriente province to his death in New York City. His impulse to write poetry arises in a world that has no room and no real need for it. The rest of the film follows his attempts to find a place where his passion can flourish. He has to fight for his words, and he almost dies for them.

At age 20, Arenas' first book, "Singing from the Well," was published, and would be the only one of his works to receive a printing in Cuba. By the late 1960s, the Castro government was coming down hard on artists and homosexuals, which made Arenas a double target. His second novel, "Hallucinations," was smuggled into France, where it was published to great acclaim. From there on out, authorities endlessly harassed him and, finally, railroaded Arenas into prison after the author was falsely accused of sexual molestation

Arena's writing was about tearing away concealment, as all great writing should be, and it is a testament to Schnabel's skill as a director that the film mirrors this objective. This film came out shortly after my own nondescript stint at a third rate film school had ended and sparked some emotions I often try to repress. Tonight in an effort to tear away some of my concealment, I'm posting, from a sporadically used journal, an excerpt of an entry made after I originally saw this film.

While watching the movie I was fixed on the story of this man who had literally nothing but the gift to write, which he seemingly had from the first day, a true gift from God. This gift allowed him to rise out of poverty and ignorance into the world of literature. And yet this gift from God couldn’t save him from the persecution of man. His homosexuality branding him a subversive and an outcast, he eventually escaped the prisons of Cuba only to die of AIDS in NY at the age of 40. Despite everything, the pain of his childhood, abject poverty, being fatherless, a despondent mother and hateful grandfather, the persecution of the Cuban government and his own short-comings, this is a man whose life was so much more fulfilling and complete than mine has been. He wrote in every condition possible and it boiled within him, lifting his spirit enough to survive. He loved even under fear of reprisal and took chances where surely lesser men would have fallen to their knees and asked God why or cursed him loudly and given up all hope. I realized that my life is afflicted in some way, that I have had opportunities many would only dream of having and yet have done nothing. Why? Because of my fear of what others might say, my fear of failure and rejection, my fear that I am not worthy nor gifted enough to succeed? Fear, plain and simple, has wrested control of my life from me.

As soon as the movie was over I left the theater, only just briefly nodding to Lori and Eze. I had no desire to talk to either one of them when neither would understand my feelings. I wanted to keep the moment pure and not share it with anyone. I wanted to reminisce about the patterns of the movie in my head without disturbance. I wanted to believe that I was worthy of putting my pen to paper and releasing the feelings that are so lost inside my head. I didn’t want to share the moment or speak a word and feel inadequate all over again. I put KUVO on and began to drive home, thinking of my feelings about the movie and my own life.

I realized that I was close to the park on 3^rd and Claremont, the one I always called Sundial Park. I pulled into the parking lot, got out of the car, sat on the cold stone of the steps and stared at the city lights with their reflective amber and white glow on the clouds above. I sat in the icy wind and let the emotions that were buried inside me well up and pour out. I breathed them out into the cold night and tried to let them go, but they are still with me, softer and less defined but lingering all the same. I breathed them out into the night and felt remorse for a life passing by and yet not truly lived. I stood up and reflected on the cool, still night; the rows of trees rustling ever so faintly in the background. I rose to my feet and inhaled the cold air. I breathed back in the emotions I had wished to expel. I got in my car, drove home and began to write. I hope this feeling never ends.