REVIEW: Biutiful (2)

THE HEART OF DARKNESS

The Barcelona depicted in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful is the exact spiritual and physical opposite of Woody Allen's vision of the city in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Gaudi's grand gothic architecture, cobbled streets littered with history and a carefree European lifestyle marked Allen's lyrical representation of the Spanish city. Inarritu's film is poetic too. But it's the song of despair, squalour and death set against a bleak working class landscape (magically shot by Rodrigo Prieto) of sweatshops, industrial chimneys, urban ghettos and restless souls looking for salvation.

Javier Bardem's Uxbal is a 40-something single parent trying to make a good job of a particularly bad deal in life. Living on the fringes, he scrapes together meager earnings by working as a middleman for a ruthless Chinese businessman who uses illegal immigrants to manufacture fake branded goods. These workers are kept in the most inhuman conditions, while the Senegalese who sell the same items on street corners under the constant threat of police raids, are equally damned.

Uxbal also has a special gift -- he can communicate with dead people and uses his powers to help grieving families reconnect with their recently deceased loved ones. For which he doesn't mind taking money. Because he also has a terrible secret -- one the director lets us in on very early in the film, thereby ensuring that our sympathies are firmly with his protagonist, no matter what unfolds thereafter -- that he's dying of cancer and has but a few weeks to live.

Then Inarritu piles on the misery. It's relentless. And ruthless. Manipulative too. Because like his earlier films (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel), the director wants to continues exploring the wretchedness of modern city life, the collision of cultures and the colossal mess that mankind seems to have worked itself into. Nobody's a saint. Everyone must do what they can to survive.  

Not only does Uxbal have to plan for his children's future, he's forced to grapple with a loony ex-wife, Marambra (Maricel Alvarez, stunning), a 'masseuse' whose clientele includes Uxbal's older brother. He must do what he can for the illegals he imagines are under his care -- sometimes he does good, and sometimes his plans go horribly awry. In either case, there are consequences. And Uxbal must face them regardless of how impossible it may seem to go on.

Much of the film's poignancy draws from Bardem's marvelous rendition of a wracked soul. His eyes and face reflect the anguish of a man perennially on the brink of despair, and yet, clinging on to life with the last reserve of dignity. Underneath his tough exterior is a vulnerable man constantly in battle with his conscience. Alvarez's Marambra is an equally doomed character resonating deep-rooted existential angst (she also suffers from bipolar disorder and is a former alcoholic) which she tackles with acute flakiness.

As for the Chinese and the Senegalese, they represent the darkest corners of the planet -- people most of us would rather wish away than deal with. Inarritu leaves them as symbols and doesn't bother to give any one of them individual characteristics.

Unlike his earlier works, Inarritu somehow doesn't manage to distill the undying human spirit from the overwhelming sense of gloom. Biutiful is powerful and tragic in a sentimental sort of way. But for Bardem's undying beauty, it may have been almost impossible to bear.