A departure from his earlier ‘hyperlink’ films, Inarritu’s soul-searching work features Cannes Best Actor winner Javier Bardem, as a story about one man’s relationship with his community, family and existential self unfolds rewardingly.
Review #618
Dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
2010 | Mexico, Spain | Drama | 148min | 2.35:1 | Spanish, Mandarin & Wolof
M18 (passed clean) for disturbing images, language, some sexual content, nudity and drug use
Cast: Javier Bardem, Maricel Alvarez, Hanaa Bouchaib
Plot: Connected with the afterlife, Uxbal is a tragic hero and father of two who’s sensing the danger of death. He struggles with a tainted reality and a fate that works against him in order to forgive, for love, and forever.
Awards: Won Best Actor and Nom. for Palme d’Or (Cannes); Nom. for 2 Oscars – Best Leading Actor, Best Foreign Language Feature
Distributor: Creative Artists Agency
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Cancer; Love & Forgiveness; Dysfunctional Family
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: General Arthouse
Viewed: In Theatres
First Published: 3 May 2011
Spoilers: No
Biutiful represents the new face of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, while simultaneously charting the path back to elements that characterised his earlier works.
The skilful Mexican director teams up with Spanish Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem (The Sea Inside, 2004; No Country for Old Men, 2007), delivering a triumph of a motion picture drama that is both rewarding and meaningful.
His frequent collaborators Rodrigo Prieto (for cinematography), Stephen Mirrione (for film editing), and Gustavo Santaolalla (for film score) combine their talents once again to give the film a style and feel that uniquely belong to Inarritu.
Shot largely from the perspective of Uxbal (Bardem), who plays a cancer-stricken father of a dysfunctional family, Biutiful is a story about one man’s relationship with his community, family, and existential self.
Uxbal earns side money by providing illegal Chinese with labour jobs in a construction site and protecting drug-selling Africans from police exposure. He has a bipolar wife and two children who are psychologically restrained by his frequent volatile relations with their mother.
Uxbal learns that he is dying soon, and despite suffering from physical pain, and the pain of seeing the people around him self-destruct, he summons the strength to live out his remaining weeks through love, forgiveness, and redemption.
“Look in my eyes. Look at my face. Remember me, please.”
Like his works before Biutiful, Inarritu gives it a cosmopolitan touch, shooting the film in at least three different languages, though he does not explicitly indulge in the sort of multiple narrative threads that structured his previous films such as 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006).
Bardem gives a tremendous performance that is deserving of his Best Actor win at Cannes. While never deliberately showy, he communicates a strong sense of loneliness and accepts his life’s path with resignation.
Biutiful takes some time to settle itself into the viewer’s mind, and when it does, it engages not only the emotions but also spiritually as the film meditates on the existential meaning of “struggling to live”.
Inarritu paints his picture with the occasional tint of blue – a cold, unforgiving colour that channels desolateness and grimness.
One of the best scenes in the film is a tracking shot over blue waters. As the camera tracks back onto the beach, we see dead bodies that have been washed ashore.
Accompanied by the transcendent music of Santaolalla, Biutiful is not only a soul-searching cinematic experience but a film that reminds us of Inarritu’s incredible talent as a filmmaker.
Grade: A-
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 