I guessed that the 2011 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film would include Biutiful, which did make the final cut. This film had better exposure in the United States than the other films that were nominated. It did get a nomination, but it did not win. 2011 was a thin year for this category at the Oscars. I didn't see the winner, In A Better World, until after the Oscars. It took a win for the film to make it to screens near me. In a Better World was a good choice to win.
Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is a hustler. He generates money through exploitation. He has arrangements with the Chinese, Africans, Police, Builders and even makes appearances at funerals. The funerals are sort of an oddity. Uxbal possesses a rare gift that allows him to help the dead make a smooth transition to the afterlife. He can see the dead that linger, and talk with them. He brings peace to their family...for a small fee. It is a gift he knows that he should be giving for free.
Uxbal's other ventures revolve around illegal workers. Ekweme (Chiekh Ndiaye) hails from Senegal. He and Uxbal have a friendship beyond their business arrangement, which involves selling knock-off purses to tourists. The purses are made in a sweatshop run by Hai (Cheng Tai Shen), who keeps his workers locked in a dank basement dungeon. Uxbal juggles an incredible schedule. Between hustling money, Uxbal is also raising his daughter Ana (Hanaa Bouchaib) and son Mateo (Guillermo Estrella) because his wife Maramba (Maricel Alvarez) is a bi-polar whore who is also sleeping with his brother Tito (Eduard Fernandez).
If that description makes your head spin, it should. While Biutiful provides an engaging character study, it is incredibly complex and contrived. In a two and a half hour film, you would figure that many of the character relationships would be fleshed out, but I had quite a few questions about some of the key relationships. It also felt as if the film was trying to take dysfunction to a new level. They throw in a homosexual Chinese relationship, illegal immigration, a bi-polar spouse who likes to sell her body, infidelity, child abuse, terminal illness, accidental deaths, psychics, dirty cops, payoffs, ghosts, goblins and things that go "bump" in the night. The writing built strong characters that weren't believable, which was an odd combination. The film was also horribly long and slow paced.
The writing found balance in Javier Bardem's Oscar-nominated performance. How can such an average film produce a Best Actor nomination? Bardem. He takes it on his shoulders and makes the character study about a character that the audience believes. He brings some of the credibility his character is lacking through an awesome performance that showcased his well-known talent. I enjoyed newcomer Alvarez, whose character had almost no credibility for me. She brought some tics to the character that intrigued me. She was great. None of the other performances stood out as much as these two.
Biutiful creates nice imagery and attempts to balance concepts. It seems to be a film about mistakes and redemption. Even in redemption, you can make mistakes, which was an interesting twist to an old concept. The film has a dark mood, which makes it feel even longer at times. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu created some interesting effects for symbolism and foreshadowing. One instance had Uxbal suffering from an internal pain while his reflection is projected into a glass door. As Uxbal pulls away, his reflection lingers a little bit longer. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I am fairly certain it was an indication that Uxbal was beginning to lose touch with his spirit. Visually, the film had a dark appeal.
Biutiful is rated R. The film has several scenes that depict nudity, although only women's breasts. While there is talk about infidelity, we never actually see any sex scenes, making the nudity a milder point. The film also had strong language and drug use. The biggest concern, in my mind, would be the disturbing images. The film depicts death in many ways in numerous scenes. The imagery is dark, haunting and, at times, graphic. It is a film that would not be geared towards an adolescent audience. I would recommend mid-teens and above.
I had mixed feeling about Biutiful. I wanted to like it for Javier Bardem. He is a great actor. While I enjoy character studies, this one came at the expense of 148 minutes of sluggish pacing balanced by Javier's performance. While imagery can help tell a story, there is just a lot going on in this movie. So much, that it feels contrived and doesn't manage to develop important relationships within the allotted time. Conceptually, the movie is brilliant. The execution looks good, but feels mediocre. I would mildly recommend Biutiful with 6.5/10.
