One Night (2012)

Excellent but underrated film

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Una Noche gives a nuanced perspective of Cubans in Havana that I can trust. It tells the story of a brother and sister and Raul. Raul and the brother (Elio) have been planning to cross to Miami. An incident makes their plan the very top priority, and the sister, Lila finds out. We gradually figure out that Elio is in love with Raul, though never explicitly spelled out, and is willing to do everything for him. Raul has had a difficult life, with his mother having AIDS and his father gone. He is apparently in Miami, and Raul desperately wants to be with him. But that leaves Raul to take care of everything, and we find out he does sex work to make ends meet. Lila is adept at taekwondo and is always just by herself. She prefers to watch people than talk to them. The exception is her brother Elio, who she said she couldn't live without. Together the three of them set off to Miami. I would have liked the movie to have centered Elio more, since he is the center of it all. We get to appreciate him through his sister, and through Raul, but we don't quite get to spend time with him as his own character. Dariel Arrechaga is effective and magnetic as Raul. I loved the film showing the complexities of life in Cuba, without it implicitly going one way (the usual way when Cuba is viewed through US Capitalist lens).

This has been my favorite film out of the three that we, as a class, have watched. I really enjoyed it because I felt as though the movie never really lost my attention; I always was excited to know what would happen next. There was just so many themes- and so much suspense! The themes in this movie particularly intrigued me, and interested me, because I could relate to them in terms of American society a little more than the other movies. The fact that the males seemed to act sexist towards the females, like when Raul pushed himself on multiple girls on multiple scenes when they declined him. Even when Lila, Elio and Raul were rowing to Miami, Lila barely rowed, as if it were a "man's" job. There was also quite a bit of bullying along with this, like when the girls in the street were making fun of Lila for the hair on her arms. Another main theme was homosexuality. There were so many references and slang terms used in this film, and most of the characters treated homosexuality as a joke and something gross that is not to be spoken of. I thought it was really interesting and surprising when Elio kissed Raul while he was sleeping, and how his sister completely accepted it, and Raul did not. This makes me wonder if Cuba is as evolved as we are when it comes to accepting homosexuality. There was also a lot of sex in this movie, and sexual advances, such as, again, when Raul pushed himself on multiple females, trying to force them to get together with him. Elio and Lila's mother was also cheating on their father with another man, and Lila actually saw them, which must've been hard on her. Raul's mother was dying from AIDS, yet was still prostituting herself, which Raul also walked in on her with a client, similarly to Lila's situation. During the movie introduction that Mac did, he mentioned that two of the actors went missing during the filming of this film, and once they were found pled for a political asylum. This interested me, and made me wonder; what does this mean? A political asylum is defined in the dictionary as "the protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee." So, this basically means that one can apply for asylum and can be granted refugee status. One can apply if you have fled your home country in fear for your life, and do not want to go back. The actors, Javier Nunez Florian (the character of Elio) and Anailin de la Rua de la Torre (the character of Lila) were the pair who went missing during the filming of this movie, while at an airport in Miami. Even their costar who played Raul, did not know where they were or why they had disappeared, which caused director and the entire film crew to panic. Thankfully, three days later, the two (who played twins in the movie) were not only found, but also were pleading political asylum. Interestingly, these two happened to be in a romantic relationship outside of the set!

The film starts out with Elio, the brother of the narrator Lila, helping teach her to swim. Next, the director shows the close relationship between the two as they ride through the streets of Havana together on a bike. They seem inseparable, and Lila feels like they are inseparable. Then, Elio meets Raul who it seems that Elio takes a liking to. From that point on, Elio and Raul work in a kitchen of a hotel while preparing to migrate across the ocean 93 miles to Miami. Raul believes his dad is living there and that if they go they will have a better life. I don't think Elio has bought into the "American Dream" but it appears he will do anything for Raul. Raul dreams of driving a fast car and reuniting with is dad. The trip over seas is expedited when Raul is accused of seriously injuring a tourist. Elio drops everything and starts stealing materials to put together a raft. Lila also wants to tag along on the journey because she would do anything for Elio. They attempt to cross the ocean to Miami but don't succeed. Also, in the process Elio seems to be killed by a shark while saving his sister. They end up circling back around to Cuba. The film shows how people have hope for a better life in America but the struggle to get there is great

I absolutely loved everything about this film! The characters all had so much depth and complexity, the story line kept you wondering what was going to happen, and the film shots were all very interesting. I have been to Havana, Cuba myself so it was cool to see the story play out there. I think that the director did an amazing job of portraying the hardships and tough decisions that the people of Cuba have to make every day in order to survive. My favorite characters were Lila and Raul. Lila was so much tougher than she seemed in the end, and I felt that she had a lot of respect for herself and for other women despite the fact that she was bullied. I was fascinated by Raul's character and how he developed from a pretty selfish boy to a caring man in a short amount of time. While I loved this movie, there were definitely some scenes that I was not used to seeing at all like the various sex scenes. In American films, sex scenes tend to be more for viewers, and they are much more romanticized; however, in this film the sex scenes were all essential to the plot and none of them were very romantic. Overall, I love this movie and would give it 5/5 stars.