Eagerly anticipating this week ... (5-24)

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (5-24)
Alex Garland's Civil War (2024)

2/01/2014

Biutiful (2010) - Sad globalization stories from Iñárritu



1 Film Excess nomination:

Best Lead Actor: Javier Bardem (lost to Stephen Dorff in Somewhere

+ Best Spanish Movie of the Year

The simple, enticing poster for Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu's Biutiful



In Barcelona, we follow an invisible web of underclass Africans, Chinese and Spaniards through our main character, a family father with prostate cancer, who is struggling to provide for his family, with his manic-depressive prostitute wife and with the many tragedies that his life runs into.

 
Master Mexican director Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu (Babel (2006)) again shows himself as a sublimely sense-manipulating director, who has found a compelling thematical playground in the adverse consequences of the globalized world of today. The tall cake of misery that he collects in this film logically shouldn't come together, but somehow it does. The parts stand out realistic enough, and the great performances and gritty photography help make it all go down compellingly.
The film's vehement gloom and almost bitter, implicit, societal critique makes the experience for some a bit too negative on the whole, but Biutiful has moments of gravitas and beauty and a nerve-racking father issue at its frame that tears at the heartstrings. Javier Bardem (Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008)) and Maricel Álvarez (To Rome With Love (2012)) as the sick woman are terrific, and the child actors also give first rate performances.
Biutiful is the Spanish phonetic spelling of beautiful, (the film deals extensively with immigrants and social outcasts), and is also the spelling of the word that Bardem's character thinks right when helping his daughter with her homework. It is a great film and arguably Iñárritu's last really great film to date.

Related posts:

Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu: 2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Babel (2006) or, Everyone's Connnected
21 Grams (2003) or, Hardcore Life
Amores Perros/Love Is a Bitch (2000) or, People = Bad, Dogs = Good

Javier Bardem as Uxbal in Iñáritu's Biutiful

Budget: Unknown
Box office: 25.1 mil. $ (only 5.1 North America)
= Uncertainty (but probably a hit)

What do you think of Biutiful?
How do you think Iñárritu will do with comedy?

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