‘Night Is Not Eternal’ Review: Nanfu Wang’s HBO Doc Is a Sharp, Timely Examination of the Fight Against Fascism

As the election frenzy quiets, Night Is Not Eternal gains resonance. Nanfu Wang’s latest doc deals in matters of authoritarian rule and fascism, considering how both entrench themselves within a nation — likely to be of particular interest to Americans processing unpleasant aspects of their political reality. Wang stages a kind of comparative analysis of China, her home nation; the United States, where she is now anchored; and Cuba, which her friend and pro-democracy activist Rosa Maria Payá calls home, to affirm the idea that the people’s power is the key to building a liberatory consciousness and the only means of opposing consolidated rule. 

Night Is Not Eternal, which premieres on Nov. 19 on HBO, opens with a question that frames a dual portrait of Wang and Payá. In voiceover, Wang recalls the difficulty of filming her first project, Hooligan Sparrow, and how it prompted her to think about how people living under authoritarian regimes could fight for change. At a film festival, she meets Payá, who tells her that the movie reminded her of Cuba. A friendship is born as the two women share stories of their respective experiences. The early part of Wang’s new movie mirrors the intimacy on display in Apolonia, Apolonia, Lea Glob’s considered portrait of an artist. In the process of documenting Payá, Wang, like Glob, also becomes a subject of her own film.

Wang uses archival footage to build a biographical portrait of Payá. The activist is the daughter of Oswaldo Payá, who founded a pro-democracy movement in Cuba to oppose its one-party rule. In videos culled by Wang, a younger Payá talks about the legacy of her father (older footage gives us a glimpse of his personality) and the Cuban government’s harassment campaign against him. Wang occasionally interjects her own commentary during this section, adding information about the younger Payá’s brief exile from the island.

The narrative of Night Is Not Eternal begins in earnest around 2017, when a protest action compels Payá to return to Havana from Miami. Wang relinquishes her post as narrator and recedes into the background, quietly observing Payá and her friends. When the director does return, she uses the narrative to underscore the connections between herself and Payá, between Cuba and China. Both women struggle to move freely between the United States and their home countries and must navigate the challenge of being flagged as dissidents. There’s a lot of admiration on Wang’s end, especially, as she watches her friend fight for the release of incarcerated comrades, ditch the surveillance of state police and make tough decisions about risk and safety. 

Wang is an efficient storyteller and Night is Not Eternal moves through its introduction of Payà, a history of Cuba and early comparisons to China with ease. Archival footage helps the director explore the history of Cuban resistance, its antagonism to the American imperial project and Fidel Castro’s evolving reputation. Wang’s distance from the subject makes her a compelling interlocutor, one who wrestles with the myth of Cuba and its reality. Of course, there are moments, especially when it comes to understanding Cuban’s contemporary political landscape and Payà’s place within it, that inspire some questions and would have benefitted from additional context. Still, throughout Night Is Not Eternal, Wang models an urgent and necessary type of critical thinking. Her questions become one of the most striking elements of this project, which takes a surprising turn. 

After building an intimate friendship strengthened by a shared political vision, Wang finds herself disappointed in Payà during the U.S. presidential election in 2016. While watching television one day, Wang sees her friend sitting with Donald Trump. Was this a strategic move or a tacit endorsement?

Investigating this question leads Wang down a thorny intellectual and emotional path. She confronts the reality that some émigrés from authoritarian-ruled countries settle in the United States and then go on to support a figure like Trump. Wang wrestles with the differences between herself and Payà, who begins attending events like a gala for the Victims of Communism and begins referring to the ideology as a great evil that must be eradicated. Through confrontational exchanges with her friend, Wang tries to understand this side of Payà. The answers complicate this dual portrait, and Payà’s political choices force Wang to clarify her own. 

In one particularly instructive moment, Wang articulates the differences between various economic structures and authoritarianism. Communism, she argues, doesn’t foment consolidated rule any more than capitalism does, and it’s dangerous to think of the relationship between the two as causal. “I had thought that Americans learned from the Red Scare that politicians spread fear of Communism so that they could exploit that fear,” Wang says at one point. “Clearly, it was not the case.” Wang’s comment reminded me of a recent comment made by Denzel Washington, a star in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II. When asked about his thoughts on the election, Washington expressed disillusionment with the current landscape and concluded that people are “being manipulated by both sides.”

The United States, with its increasing threats of fascism, becomes the arena in which Wang and Payá elucidate their political missions. Their attitudes about the direction of the country also creates frictions in their friendship, a poignant emotional thread that the filmmaker approaches with an admirable subtlety. Interviews between the two in the latter half of the film are tense and informative, with Wang leaning into the challenge of rebutting her friend’s views.

For all the painful turns it takes, the director’s project is ultimately a hopeful one, as affirmed by later footage of recent protests in China and Cuba. Night Is Not Eternal testifies to the will of the people and serves as a reminder that governments work for the people — not the other way around.