Perhaps the top contender in this year’s crop of foreign-language film award seekers is Biutiful, which brings together two highly regarded powerhouses of not just Latino but worldwide cinema: Oscar-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem and Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu. There’s a faint echo here of a similarly titled foreign film that achieved wide acclaim 12 years ago: Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful. Both of these films center on big-hearted fathers who do everything they can to shelter and protect their children and loved ones. But there the similarities end, for, unlike that earlier movie, life is decidedly not beautiful in Biutiful.
Bardem plays Uxbal, a streetwise Barcelona father of two children: an adoring 10-year-old daughter, Ana (Hanaa Bouchaib), and her feisty younger brother, Mateo (Guillermo Estrella). Uxbal is divorced from their manic-depressive mother, Marambra (Maricel Álvarez), who “likes to have fun” way too much, including partying with Uxbal’s playboy brother, Tito (Eduard Fernández). Thanks to Marambra’s wild mood swings, shared custody of the children, Tito’s infidelities and shady business deals, and their long-dead father’s impending exhumation from his burial niche so the cemetery can be torn down for a new mall, Uxbal has quite a lot on his familial plate to deal with.
But there’s even more difficulties facing Uxbal when he steps out on the streets of Barcelona. It gradually becomes established that Uxbal is a middleman, connecting one immigrant community with another–in particular, taking cash from a pair of Chinese sweatshop owners in payment for getting their counterfeit purses and bootleg DVDs into the hands of African street vendors. But some of the Africans sell dope as well, and despite Uxbal’s bribes to the police, a raid ensues that’s as startling and dynamically filmed as the crucial car-crash sequence in Iñárritu’s first major film, Amores Perros.
Uxbal’s heart aches for the Chinese laborers and their deplorable living conditions, and for Ige (Diaryatou Daff), a Senegalese mother of a toddler, both of them displaced from their home by her husband’s arrest. Uxbal’s empathy extends in another, more curious direction, for he’s a middleman in another dimension as well–he’s a medium. He seems to have the ability to communicate with the dead, and grief-stricken loved ones either revile or reward his ability. The heavy burdens of this talent, along with all the other issues he’s juggling, lead him to visit his old friend and lone confessor, Bea (Ana Wagener), a woman in tune with the mysteries of life and health, and the only person who immediately knows his darkest secret: Uxbal is dying of cancer.
This diagnosis is no surprise to the audience, because the third scene of the movie–the first after the title is shown–takes place during a doctor’s examination of Uxbal. That’s not a good sign right off the bat; usually when a movie character is in a doctor’s office early in a film, they’re in a coffin by the end of it. Biutiful reminded me of another foreign-language classic, Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru (which begins with a shot of the lead character’s cancer-filled chest X-ray). Both films are about dying men coming to terms with their impending demises and trying to sort through the madness and leave positive legacies for their surviving kin. I was not entirely surprised to see a production company named Ikiru Films listed in Biutiful’s closing credits.
And as for those two pre-title scenes, don’t be a latecomer and miss them; they are soft and curious scenes, but they’re impactful for the audience upon later reflection. Plus, it’s very interesting to hear a film begin with whispered dialogue. Iñárritu makes many interesting directorial choices such as this, as in all his films to date. Eschewing English dialogue after his two previous successes, 21 Grams and Babel, Iñárritu retains the multilingualism that made Babel so intriguing, with the English subtitles of Biutiful color-coded to differentiate Chinese, Senegalese, and Spanish. He also employs some clever foreshadowing, with certain images presented early in the film reflected and paid off in the latter stages.
But as you’ve likely surmised already, Biutiful is not a feel-good movie, not by a long shot. It’s unrelentingly sad, wince-inducing at times. A couple of moments are heartbreakingly shocking. Javier Bardem’s heavy-lidded visage doesn’t improve the mood any, either. To be honest, I expected more from Bardem’s performance given all the advance hype, and although I still consider him to be a fine actor, the script and direction confine him to a much more restrained portrayal than anticipated. I kept waiting for him to say or do something memorable enough to justify his Best Actor Oscar nomination, but I just didn’t see it. There doesn’t seem to be enough of an emotional catharsis for his character and the story.
Maybe parents and those examining questions of mortality and philosophy will connect more strongly with Uxbal and his troubles. There’s little doubt the film will generate intellectual discussions of mortality, the afterlife, and personal responsibility. And I must offer a modicum of praise to Iñárritu and his production collaborators for their craftsmanship on this truly thought-provoking film. But for a movie about a Christ-like individual with a big heart for those suffering around him, Biutiful doesn’t wrench our hearts; like the artificial light box Marambra uses to calm her moods, the movie screen becomes a large “light box” for the audience, numbing our emotions temporarily.
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