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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Biutiful

I am writing about a film that I should have written one year ago because it premiered at Cannes in 2010. Somehow, I didn’t watch the film till recently .Biutiful is Alejandro González Iñárritu’s fourth film following Babel in 2006 which won Gustavo Santaolalla the Oscar for best original score. Babel was a story spread across Japan, Morocco, the United States and Mexico and with an international star cast. Biutiful is a different affair, filmed in Spanish and lighter on stars apart from Javier Bardem. Here Iñárritu focuses on a linear narrative rather than the spectacular cross-continental leaps and criss-crosses. Iñárritu examines an array of philosophical questions-chiefly what does it mean to be good? Can we opt to be good selectively, it is okay to be good when it suits us. There is an angle of afterlife which complicates the proceedings for Uxbal played by Javier Bardem.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu is known for making bleak dramas, with decent storylines which we wait to interact at some point in the film that keeps the audience interested among all of the depressing emotional realism that he brings to the screen. In Biutiful, the story is about Uxbal alone and his gradual approach to his death as he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Uxbal struggles to reconcile his life choices and profession.

It is a bit depressing to see life piling one misery after another on Uxbal who has no one to share his state of mind with .It is a strange situation as he has to look after the immigrants who he makes money off by hustling deals to local construction sites or sweat shops run by the Chinese. He is unique from his cohort in that he tries to treat those they are exploiting work from, with compassion and dignity. He is their saviour but he also makes money off them. He is a man with conscience, a caring father but a criminal nonetheless in the gritty side-world of Barcelona, a hustler on whom life has never been kind. He knows how cruel the world can be and fears for his children's well being after he has died and hence his reluctance in accepting death.

And as if the troubles were not enough, he also has got a gift of communicating with the souls of recently deceased people who have died before their time and have trouble to let go their bodies. Uxbal makes money out of that too, of course with the guilt that he shouldn’t have done that. There are more than couple of scenes that stay with you..Uxbal talking to his daughter and handing over the diamond ring which is the first and last scene of the film. The flight of the birds on a cloudy and pale Barcelona skyline which i think is meant to represent the only free souls in the film. Another one is when Uxbal gets to see his dead father who had fled Spain during the years of Franco but died as soon as he arrived in Mexico. Uxbal sees the body of his 20 year old father embalmed in the cemetery which is a neat little goose-bump moment .Of particular mention is the cinematography (Rodrigo Prieto) which is always a strong feature of Iñárritu’s films.

There are some other notable moments in Biutiful and they are so effective because of the way Javier Bardem had played the role and conveyed that sense of moral enigma that his life has come to. Incidentally, Javier Bardem's part in this film is the first time that a performance entirely in the Spanish Language has been nominated for an Academy Award Best Actor Oscar.

Iñárritu’s Amores Perros is an attested classic. 21 Grams had a unique and challenging narrative structure, some top class actors and a great story. Babel too had a great cast and kept us entertained throughout. But Biutiful seems and is longer than it should be and at times it can be disturbing to see Uxbal’s life being taken apart slowly but with assurity . Iñárritu falls short of making a really good film. It stops at being a so-so film with an outstanding lead performance. Maybe a change in genre would do well for the director.It is not as if he can not do it.. remember the delightful 3 minute long Nike -' write the future' ad made by him for the last FIFA world cup?

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