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‘Night Is Not Eternal’ Review: Nanfu Wang Keenly Observes the Fight for Freedom in Cuba at a Crucial Moment
Nanfu Wang questions the compromises Cuban activist Rosa María Payá makes to rise from her actions back home to a position of influence in the U.S.
While most nonfiction filmmakers remove themselves from the narrative equation of their work, never explicitly addressing their personal investment nor including their image or voice on screen, Chinese documentarian Nanfu Wang has forged her career doing exactly the opposite. Wang’s self-referential approach here manifests itself through the presence of footage from several of her films, most notably her 2016 debut “Hooligan Sparrow,” about activists demanding justice in a case of sexual abuse against elementary school girls. Wang presents that sequence in blurry slow motion, as if trying to mine all meaning from this rare moment of joyful abandon for Payá — the only time the filmmaker has seen her acquaintance fully disconnected from her all-consuming cause.
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