Biutiful

Film Watched: Biutiful dir. Alejandro Iñárritu

This is quite the heavy picture. It was very atmospheric with not too much levity, and it presents some very striking images and horrific moments. Not a film to watch if you're in a bad mood and if you are feeling good, get ready for that to end.

There are some beautiful scenes featuring Uxbal and his children! And then lots of death and despair.

The film prepares the viewer with clues shown throughout for the death of the main character, Uxbal. Which is what I will be exploring in this post more than anything else. There is a certain 'language' or style to death in Biutiful. The first possible aspect of this of this is that the dead must somehow converse with the living before they can move on. There are at last two examples of this.

• when the ghost of a dead boy confesses his sins and the second is when the elderly man describes his death to his loved one. When Uxbal dies he finishes his conversation with his daughte. It seems to be his only loose end, the only thing unfinished in life. 
• The spirits of the dead rise to the ceiling, which is perhaps first exibited through the moths and secondly through the bodies of the workers. Uxbal experiences this before he makes it to the bedroom. 
• Those who have died can be seen in mirrors. Perhaps this is merely to emphasize the presence of a spirit because they cannot be seen outside of the mirrors in some shots, but it seems to be attached to the lore that Biutiful creates for the spirits of the dead.

The structure helps the film reveal many key points in the story in the story but guard their full meaning. The first time we see the man speaking to Uxbal in the forest we do not know his identity. In the beginning we are led to believe the father and daughter continue their conversation naturally, which we later realize, because of the change in perspective, is only half-true. He dies in the middle of their dialogue but she doesn't notice for two reasons.

• She is fixated on her mother's ring which they were both admiring on her hand. 
• She seems to have inherited her father's psychic or telepathic abilities and can continue the conversation with his spirit.

The film has been criticized for being too heavy handed and overly grim. As one reviewer points out, the film can give one, "a true overdose of the tragedy of the human condition". I found this to be the case where the Chinese factory owner, Hai, was murdered by his lover/business partner, Liwei. Compared to the death of the innocent immigrants this seemed no where near as important and a little bit overkill. It lacked the gravity that the other dramatic moments of the film had. Of course we know he's paranoid about someone talking, but to actually murder him? It seemed like an extreme moment used to nail in the idea that terrible things happen in life. Although the structure of the film is played with briefly (the beginning and the end) it remains comprehensible. One review described the film as Uxbal's "death march", which is essentially what the film captures. For the entire film, we know Uxbal as a man dying. The film explores the final struggles of a dead man walking.

-Claudia