Una Noche (aka one night)
extensively explores the lifestyle that resides within Habana Cuba, the harsh
and unfair difficulties such life presents to its locals, and the people that try to
escape.
The film focuses on twin teenage siblings Lila (Anailín de la Rúa de la Torre) and Elio (Javier Nuñez Florián)—each with their own particular issues. Lila is a fairly masculine girl—enjoying Taekwondo and acting very tomboyish. These aspects, along with her dirty hair and unshaved armpits, make her a target for cruel mockery from the plastic girls. Elio, on the other hand, is a closeted gay stuck in a very traditionally masculine land—witnessing his friends mercilessly insulting anyone openly homosexual. At one point, Elio’s father yelled at him to “be a man”, causing Elio to push him into a wall. The action made his father very happy, to the point of crying from seeing his son show such aggressive “manliness”.
The film focuses on twin teenage siblings Lila (Anailín de la Rúa de la Torre) and Elio (Javier Nuñez Florián)—each with their own particular issues. Lila is a fairly masculine girl—enjoying Taekwondo and acting very tomboyish. These aspects, along with her dirty hair and unshaved armpits, make her a target for cruel mockery from the plastic girls. Elio, on the other hand, is a closeted gay stuck in a very traditionally masculine land—witnessing his friends mercilessly insulting anyone openly homosexual. At one point, Elio’s father yelled at him to “be a man”, causing Elio to push him into a wall. The action made his father very happy, to the point of crying from seeing his son show such aggressive “manliness”.
The twins are born into a world where
they would have most likely preferred to have been the other sibling. Lila would love to be seen as one of the boys,
rather than viewed by the boys lecherously as a piece of meat. Elio would love to pursue the boys in a sexual
and/or romantic manner, particularly his close friend and the apple of his eye—the
very friend who actually has his eyes on Lila—Raul (Dariel Arrechaga). Raul is a very handsome teenager with the
worst issues out of all three. He works
at a fancy hotel, serving to the upper-class tourist while being treated like
s*** by his management. The locals live
in a city that is designed for tourism and treats its own citizens like
second-class.
Raul's father left for Miami long
ago and never made contact again. Did he
die? Did he make it there and leave his
past behind? Did he try to respond yet found it too difficult to contact? It's left uncertain,
yet Raul optimistically believes he’s made it big in America and is waiting for his son
to come over. Raul’s mother is a street
prostitute for a living, having become ill after contracting HIV. To help with his mother, Raul uses his own
Playboy sex appeal to whore himself out for money and medicine, as well as
pieces of equipment he's planning to use to escape Havana to Miami—where he can
make it big and send money back to his mom. Such are the dreams of a teenager oblivious to
how difficult such a task will be. Yet
Raul’s far-fetched dreams are forced into action when he unintentionally
surprises and causes a tourist to badly injure himself—putting himself immediately
on the most wanted list by the cops and a guaranteed spot in prison regardless
of how accidental it was.
Una Noche beautifully captures
Havana's lifestyle, both the light and the dark side. An elderly group are seen playing dominos on the
street side and another group of locals sitting around watching a street performer perform an impressive interpretive dance just as Raul crosses the background—racing his
ass off from the cops. In one scene, Lila is cheered up by a jolly old man beautifully singing in the streets. The happy
little scene is somberly halted when Lila internally informs the audience about the man’s backstory—how Lila reminds him of his daughter who left
years ago to Europe and has never seen nor contacted him since. It's a sad reminder of how isolated the locals
are from the rest of the world and how once someone leaves, they may never hear
from them again.
The light and dark contrasts keep
coming with a beautiful landscape shot of Havana that gives a wonderful view of
the city as Raul, who is backed in a corner with little to no options left,
silently contemplates suicide. Yet Elio
comes to Raul’s rescue, selling his bike to help buy the remaining parts
for escaping. Raul’s relationship with
Elio is rather one-sided. While he
certainly sees Elio as a friend, his goal of getting to Miami has him treating
Elio more like a tool. What’s worse is
Raul’s own toxic masculinity, as seen with his harsh interactions towards a
transgender woman and how he casually uses f** as an insult towards others and (unknowing of his true sexuality) Elio—using the insult on the latter to push him to be more masculine.
A meta-example of going against gender expectations is Dariel Arrechaga’s effective facial expressions with emoting Raul’s uncomfortableness when whoring himself out. It’s a rarity for films to treat its male characters as not always being cool with sex, even with traditionally attractive women. The irony is Raul’s blind to his own hypocrisy when he continuously hits on and excessively flirts with Lila to the point of making her feel uncomfortable. He does, however, get quite defensive when Lila calls prostitution grotesque—unknowingly insulting both Raul and his mother.
A meta-example of going against gender expectations is Dariel Arrechaga’s effective facial expressions with emoting Raul’s uncomfortableness when whoring himself out. It’s a rarity for films to treat its male characters as not always being cool with sex, even with traditionally attractive women. The irony is Raul’s blind to his own hypocrisy when he continuously hits on and excessively flirts with Lila to the point of making her feel uncomfortable. He does, however, get quite defensive when Lila calls prostitution grotesque—unknowingly insulting both Raul and his mother.
With the final pieces obtained, Raul and
Elio craft a raft with a motor on it and prepare to make their epic escape to
the United States. Yet their makeshift plan never had a chance of working—right from the start it is a disaster. Lila ends up following the pair and tries
sabotaging their raft—not wishing for her beloved brother to leave her—damaging
the boat. The group has to then make a
quick ditch effort at giving the raft into the sea when patrol guards start
heading their way at night, taking Lila along when she refuses to be separated
from Elio. The trio quickly find out to
their horror that the motor does not work, forcing them to try paddling the over
two-hundred-mile journey from Havana to Miami.
The boys idealistically discuss all the crazy stuff they will do once they
are in the promised land, yet the far more practical and cynical-thinking Lila
points out the disheartening facts: that none of them speak English, that they
will probably end up as sweat workers in another low-paying kitchen, and if they
get ill, they will receive no free medicine like in Cuba.
Yet being teenagers, the dire
situation comes second to their libidos, with Raul’s mind being preoccupied
on Lila and Elio’s mind preoccupied on Raul. With this unorthodox love triangle trapped
within a small confinement, antics begin as Raul continuously flirts with Lila,
who in turn angrily rejects Raul and insults him, in turn getting Elio upset at Raul's
advances towards the wrong sibling all the while eyeing down Raul's sweaty,
glimmering muscles. And then, in a moment that you know will end just swell, Elio tries kissing Raul...while stuck
in the open sea with nowhere to go if it ends badly. It goes badly. Boy, if there was ever a moment where I wish
I could lift a character out of a story just to get them away from the
cringe-inducing tension, this would be a great contender for the top.
You know the saying “Well, at least
it's not raining”, well it starts raining, with thunder and lightning included
as if the very heavens themselves do not want the trio to succeed! If comedy and tragedy are one and the same,
here it has never been more apparent. Murphy's
Law is in full effect here. Practically
everything that could go wrong, does go wrong, and I can’t help but laugh at
how ridiculously unlucky these kids have it. And here's the real kicker—the part where you
know that god is not on their side—Lila ends up getting her period, which drips
into the water and draws in a f****** shark that bumps into their makeshift
boat and knocks Lila into the water. Raul
jumps in after Lila, the force flipping the raft over—destroying it
(naturally)—and sending Elio into the waters where he is killed by the
shark. Raul and a heartbroken Lila
barely survive as they cling to a remaining piece of the raft—drifting
throughout a terrifying, somber night right back to Miami where Raul is soon arrested,
and Lila left without her beloved twin.
In the most remarkable example of
how true-to-life Una Noche is, the actors who played the twins, Anailin
de la Rua de la Torre and Javier Nunez Florian, ended up actually deflecting from Cuba to America while on tour to promote this very film. The pair ended up disappearing while in Miami,
leaving Raul’s actor Dariel Arrechada alone to finish up the Tribeca Festival
and tour himself; “Well, at the very least, I will go back to Cuba…I have my
family there, my friends, my girlfriend,” Director Lucy Malloy understood the stars's wishes, yet was bummed out because she was already developing a sequel for the
film that, obviously, would be much more difficult to make without its female
star. Nonetheless, it is a bit
heartwarming to know that while the twins's characters never succeeded in making it
to America, their actors at least did.
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