Biutiful

It takes a night (sometimes more) to recover from Inarritu's films. You question your humanity, mortality, chemistry, environment, biology, sociology and other root characters that define you as a human. Your mind's eye is made to rove from Barcelona to China, from Mexico to Egypt and all those far flung places and finally when the film is over you are glad that you are where you are. The immediate effect after watching an Inarritu movie is an odd mix of relief and gratitude. Thankfully, it is not you who is suffering, it is just a movie and those faces who you saw on screen are paid actors.

Biutiful takes place in Barcelona and Javier Bardem has a role of a life time as Uxbal, a small time entrepreneur, husband, divorcee and father of two young children. The acting and the casting is so good that it is hard to believe the actors, especially the children are acting, they are so true to life.

The hallmark of Inarritu films according to me is their very palpable art. Every frame is like a living painting drawn with painstaking detail, with the play of sounds, words and faces adding to its depth. With this film Inarritu has also taken a slight deviation from his usual multi-narrative style. Although there are interwening lives, for most part the film follows Uxbal without any other parallel narrative sharing the focus. With Biutiful Inarritu proves once again that to reach out and produce art with mass appeal you do not have to use pretentious prose or affect psuedo artsiness, life itself if told in simple words and painted with the right palette can produce the greatest art of them all.