Biutiful

Four years since his last film, Babel, Biutiful is Alejandro González Iñárritu's long awaited and eagerly anticipated fourth feature film. After the success of Babel a bitter row broke up the consistent collaborative partnership between scriptwriter Guillermo Arriaga, who kicked off massively for not getting enough credit for his artistic influence on the film, and Inarritu. This rupturing of the familiar set up of Arriaga writing and Inarritu directing sees Inarritu writing his very first screenplay, so the stakes were raised somewhat. Biutiful marks a progression from the default Arriaga narrative model, focusing on an accident/incident and exploring the effects this moment has on different people in a non-linear fashion. Its actually a relief to not see another film by the duo adopting this model, if you have seen any one of their thematically linked trilogy consisting of Amores Perros, 21 grams and Babel then you have pretty much seen them all. Biutiful is the story of a dying man, played by the always magnificent Javier Bardem, who is trying (and predominantly failing) to get his life in order before his inevitable death. This operates as a framework to explore his relationship with his children and bi-polar ex-wife, his shady occupation as co-runner of a Chinese immigrant sweat shop as well as his ability to contact the dead.

(Look at his fucking face, he's like a mixture between Jaws and a Harlequin baby.)

The opening sequence of the film finds Bardem's character Uxbal in a forest covered in snow, a dead owl lying on the earth in front of him. The distinct lack of musical score and the utilisation of a whispered voiceover sets the calm, muted and often surreal tone for the rest of the film wonderfully. As the film progresses Uxbal's life starts to spiral out of control with both domestic and business life going tits up at almost every corner. His ex-wife Marambra is a diabolically unpredictable whirlwind of emotions who is not fit to look after their two young children, this sets up a tempestuous relationship between the four of them and the film manages to superbly capture the delicate arbitrariness of the high and lows of their day to day domestic life. 

The protagonist Uxbal is a character with a warm heart and his clear sense of regret for his job's moral implications, exploiting immigrants, are brought through very effectively with Bardem's powerfully muted performance. However for me I felt that the scenes focusing on his criminal exploits added not only too much content to the narrative but unfortunately imbued parts of the film with an overtly dramatic and clichéd tone. I hesitate to detail any particular scenes in fear of spoiler warnings, but a sequence which stands out as being particularly out of place was a chase scene through the streets of Barcelona. Shot with rapid edit cuts and a use of obtrusive sound effects contributed to an exaggerated sense of kineticism which was in complete contrast to the soft, muted and calmer tone of other scenes in the film which created a much more powerful and thought provoking watch. With a 148 minute running time Biutiful is simply too long and I felt many aspects of the film could have been sliced out (particularly the sub-plot of the homosexual relationship between the other two men running the sweat shop) to produce a more focused, engaging and moving watch.

It's all too easy to make some kind of corny comment on Biutiful being beautiful, so I won't. Besides, Biutiful is not that beautiful. Its actually a very heavy, depressing watch and at times I found the melodrama in the film a tad too manipulative-you can't not feel sorry to Uxbal essentially. This is not to say that the film is not barren of effectively constructed there are some stunning moments in the film which certainly administered a fair few lumps in my throat. The connection between Uxbal and his children is mesmerising to watch and the acting is so superb its hard to believe they're not related in real life.

Biutiful largely operates very effectively as a display of the trials and tribulations of a man who is trying to support his family by any means necessary. With some staggeringly brilliant moments within the film it is just a shame that the occasional sloppiness of the narrative structure and overtly manipulative/excessive plot drag down what could indeed have been a beautiful film.