Biutiful (2010)

Biutiful focuses on life in the slums of Barcelona, a place where immigrants work for peanuts. Javier Bardem plays Uxbel, a dying father of 2 who has a whole pile of problems to resolve before death, including an illegal sweat shop business, his emotional unstable ex and his dead dad. Ultimately Uxbel must come to terms with the different cancers which are bringing him down to achieve redemption. As events spiral out of control, Uxbel struggles to achieve redemption as death approaches fast. Biutiful is directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu who also directed such miserablism as Babel and 21 pounds. These films are practically identical (inter-connecting lives full of hardship) and although Alejandro González Iñárritu certainly has passion he needs to work on versatility. All of his films seem to have the recurring theme that poverty is harsh but universal and can be overcome with hope. Such an attitude leaves us with an emotionally/ visually raw film displaying resilience in the face of extreme hardship, which is no bad thing. Javier Bardem gives a strong central performance, his face going through a catalogue of emotions accordingly. Nevertheless, the clear lack of humour is criminal given that the film outstays it’s welcome by about an hour. This is a recipe for a migraine and you can’t help but feel that all momentuem conjured up by the sound direction and gritty action is quickly lost. True, the film does have its moments, including a cracking soundtrack and a brilliant support cast but it isn’t hard to find strong points in a 141 minute marathon. Making the Chinese guys gay does nothing for the story nor does Uxbel’s virtually absent drug problem; interesting topics used for effect. You can’t help but wonder whether Iñárritu has decided that based on the success of the other films all he needs to do is show poor people looking sad but end with “hope” a noble idea flogged to death by optimists everywhere. Biutiful ends up running like a 2 hour UNICEF advert. In my opinion poverty is an awful reality that affects so many people; we cannot even begin to comprehend how poverty feels unless we feel it ourselves. Iñárritu experienced poverty himself when his dad lost everything and still managed to be happy. You have to respect the man but the film becomes increasing confused. All energy and flair disintegrates as the film gets caught in a seemingly endless loop of repetition (like a poverty cycle). Many may compare it to films such as Train-spotting or Winter’s Bone. The difference is that these films kept a chronology and knew when to end; Biutiful is like a artistic montage that everyone was too scared to edit. You end up with ill-concieved, over-wrought and painful.