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Biutiful review
:. Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
:. Starring: Javier Bardem, Blanca Portillo
:. Running Time: 2:18
:. Year: 2010
:. Country: Spain, Mexico
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We were waiting for it around the corner. After having exhausted his narrative style in Babel, which had begun to seriously falter, and by trying to push the limits of his ambitions beyond his limits, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu had to tap into new resources to offer a new film.
In this film, he fulfills his part of the contract, meets expectations, reassures even. Gone are the fragmented structures and the lyrical story, having been replaced by a more conventional linearity. In Biutiful, a single character, portrayed by an impressive Javier Bardem, who offers his best performance to date, is pivotal to the story, creating the link between the fates of the other tragic characters. He is an anti-hero, almost a bastard, but with a greatness of spirit, a sort of self-centered humanist, sensitive to the voices of the afterlife but sentenced to an imminent death. There is also Uxbal, an illegal worker raising her two children by herself, all the while frequenting police corruption, and all this filmed outside a touristy Barcelona, far from its trendy clubs and sunny Ramblas street.
That's it for the pitch. It is undeniable, Inarritu is distinguished by the formal achievements of his films. Although the narrative is more linear than in previous films, much less pretentious on the surface, more sober, thus abandoning his trademark, there remains the capacity to film human and urban misery with a certain virtuosity of rhythm, of framing, of photography and music. Inarritu masters the intricacies of editing and detail in handling the city's indifference to the tragedy it instigates. The problem is that the film, over-written, suffers from an imbalanced scenario that takes the audience hostage. Putting all the of the world's misery unto Uxbal's shoulders, he spares us nothing, exploiting the map of misery ad nauseam. So much so that each scene ultimately shows the intentions of the director: correctly petting the viewer, making all of the viewers' sensitivity chords to vibrate in order to snatch all the tears in his body. Through this real emotional terrorism, he has his way, but does not surprise us. Each drama is called forth, its theme leaping unto to the screen as evidence of its coarseness, like the shot of gas cylinders used as cheap heaters that Uxbal obtains to improve the living conditions of Chinese workers illegally living in a basement. It is easy to imagine that the cylinders will cause their death. This is what is irritating with Inarritu: this lack of confidence in his directing, as well as towards the viewer, which pushes him to exaggerate each line of the scenario, already weighed down by its pretensions.
Biutiful cheats the viewer while robbing him of his feelings. Some might allow themselves to be robbed, almost violated by his approach, but I certainly wan't. Too much sordid misery kills the sordid misery. It is even more of a pity since the director is among the most talented in this sort of exercise.
Moland Fengkov
Translated into English by Christina Azarnia
 Movie Reviews: 1998 - 2011
Movie Reviews: 2012 - present
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