A Biutiful Work of Cinematic Art
An avid follower of all things Javier Bardem since senior school…
Maricel Alvarez & Javier Bardem in Biutiful
Having enjoyed a passion for Spanish cinema and all things caliente for eons, Senor Bardem has been seriously high up on the latino pedestal for me.
Now enjoying life as a new Papa with Senorita Cruz, I have been ogling them from afar since Bigas Luna’s Jamon Jamon in 1992 – integral movie for modern Spanish cinema, hitting our previously one-track English-language obsessed big screens with a vengeance.
In Biutiful, the Mexican Director of 21 Grams and Amores Perros fame, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu delivers an immaculate work of cinematic art.
Biutiful
He demonstrates his immense love of all things cinema. The visual effect is mesmerising and the details so delicate, so beautifully thought out, woven together and smoothly edit; let alone music, script and acting, beyond expectations. A heavy, intense storyline with Javier Bardem delivering a performance bursting with compassion, emotion and empathy. His wife in the film is played by Maricel Alvarez. A clinically bi-polar neurotic who cannot care for her own children, Alvarez nails it. She took me back to the early days of the art house guru, Pedro Almodovar. He had the unique ability to pick his actresses to portray his protagonists whose faces resembled caricatures, of the ilk of Picasso portraits, verging on grotesque, a rarity in Hollywood, requiring the actress to actually ‘act’, gradually revealing to the audience her natural inner beauty from deep within her persona (apart from Cruz of course).
The plot is tragic, with intricate delvings into the ethnic underworld of Barcelona, ravaged with illegal immigrants struggling to survive in a new Europe, rarely touched on in the world of tapas and tourism extraordinaire where Michelin stars are firing on all cylinders.
Do go check out this film, a must-see for anyone thinks they they are a real fan of cinema. Bardem most definitely deserves the Oscar, if just for his method acting. How many expressions can one face give us? Great, powerful, raw masculine stuff. He is the star, however plays the part with a humility that is quite rare. Refreshing stuff – if mind-blowingly effective. Took almost a full day to get my composure back.