← Back to Reviews
in
Biutiful directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu
Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is a small time hustler in the back streets of Barcelona. He runs payoff connections between corrupt police and illegal African immigrant street sellers, and is a go between for the gangmasters of Chinese immigrants making counterfeit goods, taking a cut of the action for himself. He juggles running these chaotic activities with looking after his two young children and coping with his bi-polar ex wife.
You might think this is enough for one film but no, Uxbal can also see dead people and runs another little sideline in telling the recently bereaved whether their loved ones have passed over in peace . To pile the agony on, Uxbal discovers he has well advanced prostrate cancer.
Like in Iñárritu's other films, small actions have big consequences and the same happens here. There's none stop upheaval in the lives of all the characters including Uxbal's own children who are subjected to his ex wife's erratic emotional behaviour. The illegal immigrants as you might expect are living on the edge of society, in squalor and working in dangerous surroundings, the gangmasters are forever looking for a quick buck. Overall the film's overburdeningly depressing but also strangely predictable particularly in one story arc. To counter this there are a couple of beautifully staged scenes particularly one in the part of the story where Uxbal's father's coffin is exhumed due to building work. He asks to see his fathers embalmed body which leads to a really strange and affecting scene in the morgue.
So it feel too long, and how much despair can an audience handle? However there are two things that keep your attention - the two child actors playing Uxbal's children are luminous in every scene they're in. His daughter Ana looking at her family's suffering through the intelligent eyes of a 10 year old. Her final confrontation with her father forcing the truth about his illness from him is very moving. The young boy Mateo's sweet face is an innocent part of a sad world.
Despite Barcelona being far from the beautiful city tourists flock to, the backstreets are seedy and so is Uxbal. What he does is live off the misery of others, but his chinks of humanity are enough to see something in him, that and the fierce love he has for his children.
So the other thing that keeps you watching is Javier Bardem himself. There's no doubting what a fine actor he is, he fills the screen with his emotion - you feel it but he doesn't overplay it. I always think he's a very male actor, a very virile screen presence so here depicting him dying of prostrate cancer is almost unimaginable, he's bewildered by it and such is his power he makes you feel his pain like a dying animal.
I hesitate to recommend this film to most people, it's full of the bad things we do to each other However if you want to see Javier Bardem give a massive performance in an imperfect film then go and see this.
3.75/5
Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is a small time hustler in the back streets of Barcelona. He runs payoff connections between corrupt police and illegal African immigrant street sellers, and is a go between for the gangmasters of Chinese immigrants making counterfeit goods, taking a cut of the action for himself. He juggles running these chaotic activities with looking after his two young children and coping with his bi-polar ex wife.
You might think this is enough for one film but no, Uxbal can also see dead people and runs another little sideline in telling the recently bereaved whether their loved ones have passed over in peace . To pile the agony on, Uxbal discovers he has well advanced prostrate cancer.
Like in Iñárritu's other films, small actions have big consequences and the same happens here. There's none stop upheaval in the lives of all the characters including Uxbal's own children who are subjected to his ex wife's erratic emotional behaviour. The illegal immigrants as you might expect are living on the edge of society, in squalor and working in dangerous surroundings, the gangmasters are forever looking for a quick buck. Overall the film's overburdeningly depressing but also strangely predictable particularly in one story arc. To counter this there are a couple of beautifully staged scenes particularly one in the part of the story where Uxbal's father's coffin is exhumed due to building work. He asks to see his fathers embalmed body which leads to a really strange and affecting scene in the morgue.
So it feel too long, and how much despair can an audience handle? However there are two things that keep your attention - the two child actors playing Uxbal's children are luminous in every scene they're in. His daughter Ana looking at her family's suffering through the intelligent eyes of a 10 year old. Her final confrontation with her father forcing the truth about his illness from him is very moving. The young boy Mateo's sweet face is an innocent part of a sad world.
Despite Barcelona being far from the beautiful city tourists flock to, the backstreets are seedy and so is Uxbal. What he does is live off the misery of others, but his chinks of humanity are enough to see something in him, that and the fierce love he has for his children.
So the other thing that keeps you watching is Javier Bardem himself. There's no doubting what a fine actor he is, he fills the screen with his emotion - you feel it but he doesn't overplay it. I always think he's a very male actor, a very virile screen presence so here depicting him dying of prostrate cancer is almost unimaginable, he's bewildered by it and such is his power he makes you feel his pain like a dying animal.
I hesitate to recommend this film to most people, it's full of the bad things we do to each other However if you want to see Javier Bardem give a massive performance in an imperfect film then go and see this.
3.75/5