Biutiful, the Spanish language film by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, has divided critics but even the most negative reviews are still full of praise for the Javier Bardem in the central role as Uxbal.
The movie itself is relentlessly bleak, and any overall message (if it has one) is obscure.
On the one hand it addresses the plight of immigrants and their hand to mouth existence in Barcelona. Uxbal is not one of the bad guys, he is an opportunist middleman between more ruthless Chinese merchants and those who work in slave shops or are out selling goods on the streets.
The other, and more significant strand of the story, is Uxbal’s home life looking after his two kids and fighting his feckless ex. His messy existence is dominated by the fact that he has prostate cancer and just a couple of months to live.
The movie begins and ends with a vision of a snowbound forest , what can only be taken as a glimpse of afterlife. If so, this must be one of the few movies to show dead men smoking in heaven.
Uxbal seems to be able to see the dead too although doesn’t appear to be overly fazed or too bothered by the fact. Iñárritu doesn’t spare us the grim details of Uxbal’s condition – we see him in diapers and there are two scenes of him pissing blood (one would have sufficed). Through it all he is a caring father and essentially a good man in an impossible situation.
The movie is deserving of praise for the lack of cheap sentiment and for a vivid portrayal of life in the underbelly of a fashionable European city. With illegal immigration on the rise this is the brutal reality for many and a business opportunity for others. But aside from being able to confirm the bleakness of this existence, the movie doesn’t have much else to say.
It’s a movie worth watching for Javier Bardem’s performance but I can’t think of many other reasons to recommend it.
