Hard to believe it’s been twenty-five years since Javier Bardem had his international breakthru as Cuban dissident-writer Reinaldo Arenas in this artful bio-pic. Less hard to believe how well it’s held up as it was rightly acclaimed on release, only the second film from Julian Schnabel, segueing from high art to occasional film director. For Arenas, child of the Cuban revolution, it wasn’t long before enthusiasm turned to persecution on two fronts, as an independent thinking writer and as part of a briefly burgeoning, soon underground, gay scene around Havana. Schnabel, using a semi-linear, impressionistic style that suggests as much as it states, follows Arenas as he realizes he has to leave this new Cuba where he’s both imprisoned on trumped up charges (sexual/political) and forced to smuggle manuscripts out of the country for publication. A grim situation, yet the film is neither a downer nor a suspenseful triumph of publishing intrigue, but a journalistic memory piece tethered to a political system that tries but cannot smother his voice, determination or friendships. Schnabel brings remarkable control to the film, especially, as might be expected from his background, in color and texture, without undercutting a fluid visual style and unerring casting. Not that everything works: the use of Spanish-accented English remains debatable as is Johnny Depp’s double stunt casting. (Pretty funny though - Double drag: femme cross-dressing in jail, then as a Desk Sargent with a come-on vibe toward Arenas.) But it’s Bardem who pulls everything together, mostly with his arresting physicality, the bone structure, the way the light catches his facial plains, like some handsome Cubist dream portrait, that ultimately make this so special. It’s a plus that the guy can act, but what an objet d’art for the camera. He knows it, too, which can get him into trouble, but certainly not here, not yet.*
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Though sparing with docu footage of Castro, it still makes the case of what a crashing bore he was regardless of politics.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Bardem’s face a great argument that you don’t need spectacle and fancy effects to justify watching on a big screen to get the full experience.
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