“Biutiful” (2010)

If there were awards given for ironic titles “Biutiful” would clean up.  Aesthetically grimy, full of nasty, unsympathetic characters, its social and political milieu one of corruption, racism and mental illness, it’s the most depressing art house film since “Antichrist”.

The type of beauty that writer/director Alejandro González Iñárritu has in mind has more to do with human aspirations.  Not that his protagonist Uxbal - played by the astonishingly good Javier Bardem - is any paragon of virtue.  Uxbal finds employment for Chinese and African aliens in his native Spain, acting as though he has their best interests at heart but in practice making a handsome profit out of sweatshop misery.

There is a price to pay for this sin.  Uxbal is dying from prostate cancer.  His estranged wife is bipolar and is sleeping with his even more venal brother on the sly.  When he’s partially responsible for a horrific on site accident his situation goes rapidly from bad to worse.

The redeeming aspect of Uxbal’s character is his love for his two children.  As his world falls apart concern for their welfare becomes his prime focus.

Inarritu includes an end credit dedication to his own late father.  This packs quite an emotional punch but is hardly necessary to elucidate his theme.  Underneath all the horrible behaviour - police beatings, multiple shots of Uxbal’s pissing blood or wetting himself in public and joyless, sadomasochistic sex - the director crafts an ode to fatherhood, one as straightforward as it is heartfelt.

If the dream sequences which bookend “Biutiful” bring to mind some of the more tricky formal experiments of Inarritu’s earlier work the “magic realist” approach is something new in his cinema which he pulls off to poignant effect.  He also reins in the temptation to rely too heavily on extended, dialogue-free montage sequences, a technique that became mannered and portentous in “Babel”.

Inarritu is a filmmaker whose artistic motives are always pure, a director unafraid to tackle big universal themes like mortality or take risks with the structure of his narratives.  “Biutiful” deserves respect. It’s moving despite - or because of - the downbeat subject matter.  However, it’s not a great film.  Like “Amores Perros”, “21 Grams” and “Babel” there’s a shortfall between the director’s aspirations and his achievements.  While applauding the intentions I can’t help feeling that the guy isn’t as profound a thinker as he imagines himself to be.