Biutiful
Death Race 30, Sarah 26; 12 of 24 categories completed
Iñárritu is a tough case. I don’t know if he’d put it like this, but he lets the story decide where it’s going; he has elements, and characters, and he knows they all have to converge, but he lets them do it, in a way. He lets atmosphere and motifs and plots develop at their own pace. I respect that method, but I also respect an 80-minute movie, if you see what I mean, and the problem with an Iñárritu film is that you have to sit there for two and a half hours and wait to see where he’s going with everything and whether it’s all going to come together — and then it usually doesn’t. The slow build, the accretion of detail, the time it takes to get the viewer invested to the desired extent without the benefit of hand-holding — fine. But it’s hard to pull off on that scale, and in the past, for me, Iñárritu hasn’t. I liked Amores Perros, I admired a few scenes in Babel, I saw what the director intended, but I didn’t feel the movies got there.
Biutiful gets there, big-time. It takes a while, and Gen and I both got quite impatient with it — he’s a figure in the illegal-immigrant underworld of Barcelona, and he has second sight? Now there’s a subplot with having to move his father’s body to another cemetery? Why do we have to care about his factory contact’s affair with an underling? And he’s dying, and his estranged wife is off her meds? Too much! And with all that too-muchness, why does nothing seem to happen?
And then, about ninety minutes in, out of all these coarse threads, a beautiful tapestry starts to emerge. There’s a scene with a corpse, and a scene from the prologue falls into place, and Ixbal (Javier Bardem, flawless throughout) and the camera both show this long-dead body such tenderness, and the story begins to pick up speed, or to become inexorable, one scene after another pushing towards something wonderful and heartbreaking. I realized that everything in it had to be in it; we needed to see all of it, so that we could feel all of it.
Not everyone is going to agree with me. To tell you the truth, you could chop out ten or fifteen minutes, probably; the strip-club scene felt inessential and a little show-offy, comparatively, but no matter what you do, it’s a long movie and it requires patience and it may not work for you after all that. There’s a lot you aren’t told, too, and I like that, but you might want more explanation. But if you’ve given Iñárritu a chance in the past and he disappointed you, give him one more shot. Bardem is a fucking marvel, and I went in reluctantly agreeing to trust his judgment; if you do the same, his performance will carry you for a while.
“What’s over there?” …Man. I can’t wait to hear what y’all think of this movie. I love it like a person.
Tags: Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu Biutiful Javier Bardem movies Oscars 2011 Death Race
OK…so I hated Babel…with a fierceness rarely matched…BUT… this review makes me wanna go back and try Iñárritu again.
I hated Babel also. In love with itself, poorly cast — everything went wrong. The problem with this style of writing/directing is that a lot can go wrong that can’t be overcome, and then three hours later, you’re just mad at it. I was mad at this for 90 minutes.
Oh christ, I loved this movie.
You nailed it perfectly, the first huge chunk of the film seems all over the place, and then as it comes together, it just rolls over you again and again like the ocean we keep seeing.
I’ve never seen any of Iñárritu’s previous films, but I love Biutiful. It is a breathtaking movie. I tend to fidget a bit when watching movies – even movies I generally like (I’m just not comfortable sitting still) – and I didn’t fidget once while watching this in the theater, despite how slowly it unfolded.
Javier Bardem is amazing. A lesser actor could not have carried this film. It’s all on his shoulders and he wears it well.
On balance, it didn’t work for me. The disparate threads come together in the third act, but it takes so long to get there. I appreciate seeing a movie that doesn’t telegraph exactly what’s going to happen 20 minutes in advance, but there was just SO much going on and I think some of the transitions and establishing shots could moved more swiftly.
I did like the callback to the prologue, and I thought the look of the movie was beautiful, but it was too rambling for me.
I did really enjoy Diaryatou Daff, who played Ige.
I didn’t like it, for mostly the same reasons given by Clare. It just seemed like too much going on, too much extraneous stuff thrown in because (seemingly) no one wanted to cut it. (That “too muchness” you mentioned.) The list of adjectives I used to describe the wife alone had my dinner-mates slack-jawed: “Bi-polar masseuse who’s off her meds and may also be a hooker…AND is sleeping with her husband’s brother…”
I found myself wishing that Iñárritu had focused on one side of the story or the other: either the low-level criminal side, or the 2nd sight side; then he could have left the rest of the elements in (the health issues, the crazy wife, etc) and polished it into a more coherent storyline.
That being said, all of the performances were remarkable, it’s just too bad they got stuck in this movie. FYI – I have a first-class ticket on the “Babel was overrated” train. “(I)n love with itself” is an understatement. Naturally, imo, ymmv, etc etc.
Hey all,
I was wondering where you guys saw the movie? I can’t find it anywhere and it’s the only movie in the acting categories I need.
Thanks!
Cobble Hill Cinemas, beautiful Brooklyn NY.
I finally saw this today and damn, did I love it. It was so heartbreaking and that sadness has stuck with me through the evening. Your review is great Sars. I will say that I was surprised to look at my phone in the theater while the credits were rolling to see that over 2 1/2 hours had passed. I wasn’t impatient during the first 90 min, but I agree that the last hour was more together than the first. And except for the fact that it’s the only time in the film that Uxbal actually says the words out loud to someone that he has cancer, I hated the weird strip club scene and wish it had been cut.
I also don’t think the second-sight stuff was needed at all. The beginning and ending scenes would have still been powerful and believable.
Javier Bardem is genius.
I may not have made the effort to see this film if I hadn’t read your review, so I wanted to thank you.
It still felt overly long, but Bardem was incredible, and I’m so glad I saw it.