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The Movie:
Director and artist Julian Schnabel presented audiences with his second picture in 2000, "Before Night Falls", a dream-like look at the life of famed Cuban poet Renaldo Arenas, who remained an outcast in his society because he was gay and a writer. The film opens up with the childhood of Arenas, where he grew up in a poor background where he was virtually ignored, and allowed to go about his own business. A brief glimpse is generally all he knows about his father, and he often discusses his feelings about his mother, who was the only one to take care of him.
As he grows up (now portrayed by Javier Bardem), he joins the revolution of the time, only to find himself facing censorship and a prison term. Yet, like De Sade in "Quills", Arenas finds that no one can really take away his creativity completely. The problem with the film isn't with the performance of Bardem, certainly. The actor is able to say more than the film's screenplay, livening up and making more out of the character than the screenplay itself does - personally, from the screenplay, I never really felt that the film tells much about who Arenas really was. As an artist himself, Schnabel is at his best when he captures the pure, simple desire that Arenas has to freely express himself through his writing, fighting censorship or whatever forces stand in his way to get his writing out to the public.
Although director Schnabel has advanced his visual style apparent in "Basquiat" even further, I simply didn't find this as clearly told a tale. I didn't always understand the relation that some of the supporting characters had to the story and before I knew it, they were no longer in the tale. These characters simply aren't developed, and as such, the movie suffers because the lack of clarity hurts the pace. And, on the flip side, Schnabel has created one of the more visually beautiful pictures I've sat through in the past year. A former artist, he turns nearly every frame into a painting - a sea of dream-like, heavy colors and well-concieved images.
I suppose I liked the core of "Before Night Falls", the story of an attempt at freedom - both as a person and freedom of expression, and certainly Bardem does a very good job. But there's simply something about the way that the story is told here that makes things feel too drawn out - characters simply come in and out, some scenes don't really seem to move the film along. I was involved only infrequently, lightly pulled along by the incredible cinematography and Bardem's performance. Although Schnabel has improved in areas as a filmmaker, his first feature, "Basquiat", still stands as the more interesting work, in my opinion.
The DVD
VIDEO: New Line is just too good, folks. Not only that, they just keep getting better and better. Even with difficult material ("Lost Souls") they do stellar work. Here, with the 1.85:1 presentation of "Before Night Falls", they have made somewhat low-budget material look more beautiful than most paintings I've had the pleasure of seeing in art galleries. Sharpness is flawless here - that perfect place between softness and sharpness that gives the picture a very smooth, film-like look. The picture often has impressive depth to the image, as well.
Colors are terrific - I was almost lost in the sea of deep greens of the forest and fields in the early scenes, and the presentation does justice to the darker, more earthy colors that often appear as the film goes on. I noticed a couple of minor concerns throughout the picture - a couple of scenes showed a minimal amount of grain, although this was probably intentional. I didn't notice any other print flaws, or really any other flaws, for that matter. A very tiny bit of edge enhancement was noticed - literally - once or twice, but there was no pixelation or any other problems. This is wonderful work from New Line - although the film itself isn't as visual as some of the studio's bigger, more mainstream titles, the cinematography is excellent and the image quality is marvelous.
SOUND: "Before Night Falls" doesn't really offer that much of an audio experience. The Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation does open up at times to offer some mildly engaging surround use, but these instances are fairly few and far between. The picture does occasionally offer some ambient sounds, but they're fairly slight - I would have liked a bit more of a sense of space during the exterior scenes. Dialogue is occasionally in Spanish with English subtitles, but is mainly in English. Some may have trouble with the accents.
MENUS:: New Line provides animated menus with clips from the movie in the background as well as the Carter Burwell score playing.
EXTRAS:
Commentary: This is a commentary from director Julian Schnabel, actor Javier Bardem, screenwriter Lazaro Gomez Carriles, composer Carter Burwell and co-director of photography Xavier Perez-Grobet. I'm not sure if the group was recorded together or not, as it didn't seem that there was any interaction between the participants or the "interrupt"-ish nature of a track with so many people. Still, it's an interesting track, with Schnabel starting things off by comparing the act of filmmaking with painting and discussing his feeling that a film - like a painting - is only as good as its weakest link.
There's also a wide variety of other subjects covered throughout the track, most importantly, more information about who Arenas was, filling out some gaps of information that the movie didn't get to. I was also pleased to hear more details about the processing techniques that were used to get the kind of picture quality that is visible throughout the movie. There's some minor pauses throughout the track, but it's a quality discussion with some tidbits behind both the production and the story that are worth listening to for those who want to learn more about the picture.
Documentaries: There are three short features to be found; Little Notes On Painting is the first one, running about 14 minutes and showing director Schnabel in his massive New York studio, chatting about his art career and art in general. The second feature is a behind-the-scenes feature, which was shot by the director's daughter, and is a very enjoyable and informal look at the making of the film. Last is excerpts from "Improper Conduct", where we see an interview with the real Arenas.
Also: Also included is the film's theatrical trailer (1.85:1/5.1), DVD-ROM web-link and cast/crew bios.
Final Thoughts: As much as I liked both elements of the visual look of the movie and the production itself, I found myself having issues with the way that the story of Arenas was told. New Line's DVD really doesn't bring any suprises, as it continue's the studio's track record of really never failing to present stellar audio/video quality, as well as bringing together quality extra features. With their upcoming "Infinifilm" series of titles, they will take things even a step further.
Film Grade
The Film ** 1/2
DVD Grades
Video 92/A = (368/400 possible points)
Audio: 87/B = (348/400 possible points)
Extras: 84/B = (252/300 possible points)
Menus: 85/B = (170/200 possible points)
Value: 84/B = (252/300 possible points)
TOTAL POINTS:1390/1600
DVD GRADE:B/86%
FILM GRADE: ** 1/2
DVD GRADE: B
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