In director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s (Babel) latest masterpiece Biutiful (ironically titled and deliberately misspelled), Javier Bardem’s character Uxbal, an everyday man at the tether of his existence, talks to ghosts. It is a world where physical and metaphysical realms are equally desperate—Iñárritu grimly trawls the shadows of Barcelona’s illegal immigration, poverty and police corruption, juxtaposed against Uxbal’s marital and parental dysfunction and physical illness to bring us the perfect film about existentialism and the supernatural world. For many filmmakers, paranormal parlance would be sufficient fascination. Not so Iñárritu, for whom multiple narratives are the norm and straight horror is not the intent of this heartbreaking tour de force.
Uxbal is a morally complex man living in poverty in Barcelona, attempting to raise his children on his own. He can see the spirits of the recently deceased, he is conflicted over his feelings for his troubled bipolar wife, and he makes most of his money trading in fake designer goods that are made and sold by illegal Chinese immigrants. His existence is further compromised when he is diagnosed with cancer and the immigrants that he is responsible for wind up dead or in jail. It is a stark film, no doubt, but the film’s heavyhandedness is handled so “biutifully” by Iñárritu and Bardem, you’ll be overwhelmed by film’s end—even feeling more than a little depressed along the way.
The entire look of the film, which emphasizes decay and desolation to reflect Uxbal’s declining situation, further adds to its gloom. Yet rather than just a harrowing film, the dominance of greens and blues in the settings and the use of orange light creates more of a melancholic glow, culminating in an extraordinarily beautiful and rewarding ending (but make no mistake, the film’s gripping realism is already hypnotic throughout). The Spanish metropolis might look even scarier were it not for the wondrous cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (Brokeback Mountain), who finds beauty in even the darkest of times—such as a flock of birds that jolt into a twilight sky during one particularly volatile moment as a metaphor for Uxbal’s compromised reality. Even at 148 minutes, Biutiful at times seems like a slightly truncated version of what Iñárritu might have originally planned. Subplots hit a sudden end, motivations are inferred to the point of bafflement and the paranormal dealings are so subtle; but never mind that—we’d gladly sit through a four-hour director’s cut (if there ever was one) to soak in the film’s full splendor. Miss this at your own peril.