The thing that Requiem and Dancer do that this film does not is they let you identify with their characters. Instead, Arenas is portrayed obviously leading an alternate lifestyle he didn't want to be identified with. A man who wouldn't care if you cared or not, a man who was neither positive or negative. A man who seems to be more the rock. No one's really the rock.
People are only the rock in movies.
Movies with bad writers. Arenas wrote his poetry. Maybe Before Night Falls is the rock of a film in that it doesn't care how you relate to it, or how you will be more affected by it. Arenas wrote what he wrote, knowing it wouldn't even be published in Cuba. He didn't need an audience, he didn't need to impress anyone.