This sweeping cinematic portrait of the Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas covers the whole of the artist’s life, taking cues from his writing to spark the images and advance the narrative—from Arenas’s birth and childhood, the thrill of revolution, and his sexual awakening, to his persecution and exile. “In seamlessly weaving Arenas’s memories and fantasies with archival and simulated documentary footage, [Julian] Schnabel reveals how ‘reality’ and ‘fiction’ coalesce, facilitating a more truthful portrait of a poet’s life than one on which a filmmaker’s own preconceptions have been imposed” (Graham Fuller, Artforum).