Biutiful

A father's love for his children amidst the everyday life of crime in Barcelona. This encapsulates pretty much the basic premise of this movie, and has said nothing about the content or merit.

I'm sure quite a few reviews about this disturbing but nevertheless transcendent film will be written here. Next to the praise, a lot of people will be appalled, others indifferent, then there will be the ones who complain that Biutiful is nothing more than showing our bad world being bad.

It may be that, but it is also full of promise and dare one say it, love. And it would be foolish to ignore the hope that can be seen amidst the pain and chaos. Iñárritu shows us that we as human are able to care, for ourselves and each other.

And if nothing else, "Biutiful" proves, now officially, that Javier Bardem is one of the greatest contemporary actors.

Felicidades y gracias

What would you do if you knew that you have a few months to live and a life full of problems and unresolved issues? That's what happened to the central character of this film, a production made halfway between Spain and Mexico, skillfully directed by Alejandro González Iñarritu. The film is set in Barcelona and the main character, Uxbal, is a dubious individual who has a close relationship with organized crime and is far from the likable type that we easily like. In addition to his illegal business, which goes relatively poorly due to various problems and setbacks, Uxbal has an alcoholic, bipolar wife from whom he is, in effect, estranged, and two beloved children who are the real joy he has in life.

The film is interesting and tackles difficult, indigestible and complex topics. I can't say that it's the type of film I would recommend to a friend, because I think it's a film that lacks a certain disposition, on the part of the public, to be properly appreciated. It is not an easy film, nor does it seek to capture our sympathy, although it ends up doing so because of the way we see that man suffering. We see beyond what he does and says, we see that deep down he is not a bad man. Still, it's a depressing film and one that leaves us with a feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction at the end.

With this film, Javier Bardem had a character and material tailored to what the actor knows and is capable of doing. It's no secret that Iñarritu wanted him to be the protagonist from the start, and Bardem rewarded him by giving him a dose of commitment, experience and professionalism that anyone who wants to see the film can see. The actor is excellent and does a truly impeccable, deep, emotional job here. The film also has good performances from other actors, such as Hanaa Bouchaib, Guillermo Estrella and Maricel Álvarez, but it is Bardem's overwhelming performance that delights us and sustains the entire film.

Technically, what caught my attention the most was the excellence of the resources and sound effects and their dexterous and competent use. It is in the details that the best qualities are found, such as the absence of echo, the sound clarity, the good sound effects used or even situations like the sound of the heartbeats of two actors, when they embrace. In addition, the visual features, cinematography and editing also deserve praise.

Inarritu's three previous films---Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel---are classified together as the Death Trilogy, as they each depict the exponential impact of fatal or near-fatal occurrences in the interconnected existence of separate lives. They are each epic, punch-packing dramatic powerhouses. But now I see he still had much more to say on the literally infinite subject of death. And he says it with Biutiful, a purely experiential film that pierces through the heart with the acuity of a stingray barb.

The narrative here is a rail tunnel of raw, sprawling intimacy set in an overpopulated, decaying Barcelona ghetto. We follow Uxbal, and we're not entirely sure what he does. Neither does anybody, or him really. Much of the things he does are criminal, mainly mitigating between corrupt police and illegal aliens, with often catastrophic results. He is also a dedicated father to two young children whose mother, his ex-wife, is a wreck of alcohol, bipolarity and promiscuity, and worse, knows her inability to control herself and is in a quicksand of bettering herself. Uxbal also has prostate cancer, which is rapidly spreading. Also, he is internally connected with the afterlife. He doesn't see visions, he doesn't clutch shoulders and see the manner of one's impending death. He purely senses a recently deceased spirit in the room with him. He can do nothing about their situation. He just senses them.

Uxbal's ability to feel the presence of departed souls is portrayed like a sort of capacity to hear noise at the volume at which, say, a dog could only be expected to hear it. The film's setting and happenings are a jerky, spontaneous, lateral rush of urban business, like the sight, sound and fury made by the living to distract themselves from the silence of death. Each scene seems to be a concordance of extroverted behavior and internal behavior, both with equal fervor, yet both on either side of some two-way mirror. Only those characters, namely Uxbal, whose conflicts and dilemmas are constantly internalized, can hear that silence. Eventually, his daughter does as well, and becomes the closest to him, in what one might go as far as to consider the film's climax, a bear-like hug they both know is as fleeting as every other action in this desperate commotion of a life they lead.

Iñárritu intends to drain us. Physically, internally, emotionally. And he cleans out his total cinematic armory to do so. And like death, that is both a blessing and a curse. For however harrowing it is, Biutiful exalts us with the chance to see soul bare, through Javier Bardem's performance as Uxbal. Watching Bardem absorb, involve and ultimately possess a many-sided role like Uxbal's is a singular delicacy, and a complete wonder. His eyes speak agonizing tomes. He hauls from an unfathomably mysterious spring of passion, grief, and who knows what else.

One might be able to delineate that Bardem renders a tragic individual as a fading Barcelona forager who deals in illegal immigrants and connects with the deceased. But every now and then, a story materializes, conveyed in a way that is so sprawling, so comprehensive, that no one premise or implication can classify it. Attempting to definitely describe it limits something that offers the utmost magnitude of whatever an actor's, a filmmaker's, and viewer's, understanding. That is what makes Biutiful so precious.

Ordinarily I like these kinds of films about people struggling to overcome the odds of a bad deal.But in this film, Uxbal, the protagonist, has to struggle against every bad thing can ever happen to a person and all in a very short window of time. Death would be a welcome relief. Javier Bardem plays his role extremely well though; I felt his anguish over his children and the immigrants he "managed." His story gets weighed down, unfortunately, by the number of tragedies he must endure and the tasks he must execute. The director could have eliminated/edited a few of the off-point character traits and side stories to streamline the story for impact, which would have helped the film deliver more of a meaningful punch, not less.

In addition, the summary of this movie says Uxbal must suffer a number of tragedies on the way to redemption. I'm not sure there is any redemption here. In Children of Men, the protagonist endures a lot and struggles through his own character defects to protect an black female fugee whose pregnancy provides hope for the human race. We feel joyful at the end of CofM because he has accomplished his task despite the odds. The ending of Biutiful, however, lacks a clear meaning and we're unsure of everyone's fate except for Uxbal's. The experience was depressing.

I gave the movie an 8 because it was beautifully produced and well acted; the story was original, an uncommon view of Barcelona and the immigrants who go there for work under terrible conditions. But I doubt if anyone would want to see this film more than once.

Biutiful is a departure and a confirmation for Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu: on the one hand, it is another study of lives gone awry, with no punches pulled in regards to the misery experienced by the characters; on the other, it's the first film he's made he parted ways with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, who preferred to move on to other projects after Babel. Biutiful proves two things: firstly, Inarritu remains very good at constructing memorable images; secondly, these aren't worth quite as much without Arriaga's words.

Set in Barcelona, the film ditches the filmmaker's traditional fragmented, multi-character narrative, focusing solely on one imposing figure: Uxbal (Javier Bardem), a man who has to deal with his own imminent death from cancer, a dire relationship with his family (wife, kids and brother), his ties to local criminal activities and, more generally, the ugliness he sees every day walking down the streets. Surely the (intentionally misspelled) title must be ironic.

Working on the script himself, Inarritu goes for a simpler story, but doesn't renounce his penchant for harrowing material. In fact, Biutiful is undoubtedly the least cheerful film he's directed to this day, and that's saying something. His depiction of a gray, ugly Barcelona is faultless, exposing the city's seedy underbelly and disease (both physical and spiritual) with genuine, relentless storytelling passion. However, this is also detrimental to the film's impact: without Arriaga's more experienced take on the subject, the director doesn't know when to stop, throwing in one tragedy after another for the best part of the movie's 148 minutes, with no pause for breathing. It's almost too bleak, too tragic, to fully convince as a drama.

Does this mean all the praise Inarritu has received in the past was premature? Not really. Even his detractors usually acknowledge his talent with actors, and in this case, perhaps being aware of the script's shortcomings, he has hit the jackpot: from start to finish, Bardem is a revelation, justly awarded with the Best Actor prize in Cannes. Sure, he's always been a gifted thespian, and no stranger to difficult parts (see The Sea Inside), but here he's really in a class of his own. Communicating with his sad, tired eyes rather than his broken voice, he carries the whole picture with a stoic dignity that is always gripping and heartbreaking.

While easy to mock and criticize, Biutiful, for all its flaws, warrants at least one viewing on the grounds that it proves beyond doubt that sometimes a truly astounding performance can save an otherwise mediocre film.