The first shot of the film, a close-up of the intertwined hands of a father and daughter, already guarantees that “Biutiful” will please. The simple but carefully framed scene implies a sense of intertwined and equally profound emotions. The father grips his daughter’s hand as if afraid to lose her, and he whispers to her about the ring he places on her tiny finger. Tradition, honor and paternal love transfer from the father to his daughter, like the ring, and they endure. Without revealing their faces, bodies or identities, Iñarritu created a shot so lovely in the first seconds of his film that I wondered if he could possibly outdo it later on.
And I was pleased to see that he did. “Biutiful” runs with a smooth and almost subconscious parallelism that uses motifs of life, death and the surreal to question the unknown realm of the afterlife and to emphasize the value of the present. The film centers on the father character, Uxbal (Javier Bardem), who struggles to find a redeeming value in his life as a criminal and a man in a broken home after he finds that he is terminally ill. He has lived a life so vile, just beginning to improve in light of his young children, that he finds trouble in coping with his situation. At times he overcompensates for his sins and the most upsetting and ugly occasions result, but these particular moments show the most harrowing and multifaceted reactions from Bardem.
Uxbal also makes money on the side by communicating with the dead as a medium between them and their living loved ones. He has a relationship with death and the in-between thereafter evident quickly on that seems especially apropos when the news of his own imminent death arises. Still even he fears what he faces, so much that he cannot bring himself to deliver the news to those closest to him, and his own troubles provoke a sense of sorrow and sympathy in the viewer.
Iñarritu excels in the communication scenes, placing morbid but not gruesome images of the dead in mirrors, on ceilings, or in the room from Bardem. The first time this occurs, a young child with whom Uxbal communicates faces him across the room in a church basement as he simultaneously lies in a coffin. The scene, haunting and tacit, evokes a sense of understanding between Uxbal and the dead. It also reinforces Uxbal’s value of his earthly existence.
As Uxbal, Bardem gives a powerful and solemn performance. He lends the character a sense of stoicism similar to his role as Anton Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men,” but one far less violent and much more poised. He makes a grave and depressing story believable and intriguing to watch, balancing the happiest moments which Uxbal shares with his children with the solitary torture of dealing alone with death. Moreover, he brings a humanistic element to the film so powerful that I would have bawled for the entire final perhaps 30 minutes were it not for a few slow, deep breaths.
In one scene close to the end, Uxbal arrives home from an alcohol and drug binge at a stingy nightclub, beside himself, and the mixture of pain and confusion in Bardem’s face reads well through his half-closed eyes. He stoops over in his kitchen, and immediately beside him on the refrigerator hangs a picture his daughter colored. It reads, “la vida es biutiful,” or “life is beautiful,” and the misspelled word adds to the understated poignancy of the shot. While Uxbal does not notice the picture, the audience does, and it seems that Uxbal never can truly locate the beauty of his own life before it comes to a close.
As Uxbal, Bardem gives a powerful and solemn performance. He lends the character a sense of stoicism similar to his role as Anton Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men,” but one far less violent and much more poised. He makes a grave and depressing story believable and intriguing to watch, balancing the happiest moments which Uxbal shares with his children with the solitary torture of dealing alone with death. Moreover, he brings a humanistic element to the film so powerful that I would have bawled for the entire final perhaps 30 minutes were it not for a few slow, deep breaths.
In one scene close to the end, Uxbal arrives home from an alcohol and drug binge at a stingy nightclub, beside himself, and the mixture of pain and confusion in Bardem’s face reads well through his half-closed eyes. He stoops over in his kitchen, and immediately beside him on the refrigerator hangs a picture his daughter colored. It reads, “la vida es biutiful,” or “life is beautiful,” and the misspelled word adds to the understated poignancy of the shot. While Uxbal does not notice the picture, the audience does, and it seems that Uxbal never can truly locate the beauty of his own life before it comes to a close.
Some might consider the unrelenting depression of “Biutiful” excessive and exploitative, though I see it as real. Somehow the depression runs deeper than Iñárritu’s previous heavy material in “Amores Perros” and “21 Grams,” but it still resonates in intense form. Iñárritu creates an inexplicable web of emotion with “Biutiful” whose ends don’t tie as neatly together as his other films, but the emotion provokes thought, discussion, and re-viewing of the film. The feeling is unique, as Iñárritu’s conscious blurring of reality and fiction instigates a variety of opinion subjective to the viewer, but it lasts nonetheless.
Iñárritu’s choice to follow Uxbal alone rather than weaving a web of lives, as in “Amores Perros,” “21 Grams” and “Babel,” ultimately works in his favor. Bardem’s performance stands alone; it doesn’t require support, although the minor actors in the film, especially Blanca Portillo as Uxbal’s bipolar wife, enliven it. While the film initially appears slightly unclean and underdeveloped, the marvelous visual subtleties of “Biutiful” as well as its imperfections create a vivid portrayal of one man’s tragic near-end. Visually captivating, intense, and laden with feeling throughout, “Biutiful” hits home hard and with great and lasting strength.
Biutiful (2010)—Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu; written by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Armando Bo and Nicholas Giacobone; starring Javier Bardem; director of photography, Rodrigo Pietro; edited by Stephen Mirrione; produced by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro; released by Cha Cha Cha Films and Focus Features; running time 140 minutes
Biutiful (2010)—Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu; written by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Armando Bo and Nicholas Giacobone; starring Javier Bardem; director of photography, Rodrigo Pietro; edited by Stephen Mirrione; produced by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro; released by Cha Cha Cha Films and Focus Features; running time 140 minutes
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