{"id":244139,"date":"2011-01-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/film-review-character-driven-film-provides-biutiful-yet-tragic-trajectory\/"},"modified":"2011-01-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T08:00:00","slug":"film-review-character-driven-film-provides-biutiful-yet-tragic-trajectory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/film-review-character-driven-film-provides-biutiful-yet-tragic-trajectory\/","title":{"rendered":"Rese\u00f1a de la pel\u00edcula: la pel\u00edcula impulsada por los personajes proporciona una trayectoria 'biutiful', pero tr\u00e1gica"},"content":{"rendered":"

Por Scott Marcas | Cr\u00edtico de cine SDUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Film<\/a>
Javier Bardem stars in \u201cBiutiful.\u201d (Courtesy of Roadside Attractions)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only trace of irony or sentiment to be found in \u201cBiutiful\u201d is contained in the title, a misspelling found in a hand scrawled refrigerator note posted by Uxbal\u2019s (Javier Bardem) young daughter. How many times have you heard me moan about characterless filmmakers lacking the courage of their conviction to see a dark vision through to its logical and inescapably moribund conclusion? Writer, director Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu wears sunglasses at night.<\/p>\n

With \u201cAmores Perros,\u201d \u201c21 Grams\u201d and \u201cBabel\u201d to his credit, I\u00f1\u00e1rritu continues to display a talent for turning human tragedy into a means of finding unification and redemption. His jumbled, multi-character accounts slowly draw together their bands of otherwise unrelated individuals. We watch as storylines are intercut and siphoned into one core cause, say how many individuals a stray bullet impacts in \u201cBabel.\u201d<\/p>\n

In \u201cBiutiful,\u201d the narrative is linear and the lives of many dependant on one. Uxbal is a sainted sinner, a devoted father of two who makes his living off drug peddling street vendors, a made man in the Barcelona underworld who finds himself caught in a power struggle between corrupt dealers and even more nefarious cops. Here\u2019s a novel idea: To help keep everything clear, the subtitles come color-coded: Blue = Chinese, White = Spanish, etc.<\/p>\n

On the saintly side, the borderline Christ figure tries his best to ensure the safety and comfort of a group of twenty-five illegal Asian immigrants he finds \u201cemployment\u201d for at a local sweat shop. He is blessed with an otherworldly ability that enables him to pick up a few extra bucks on the side by conversing with fresh corpses who have yet to fully cross over.<\/p>\n

\"Film<\/a>
(Courtesy of Roadside Attractions)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When one of his vendors is put in jail, his initially reluctant wife Ige (Diaryatou Daff) is won over by Uxbal\u2019s emotional strength and becomes a member of his extended flock. Unbeknownst to Uxbal his bi-polar wife (Maricel \u00c1lvarez) is carrying on an affair with her brother-in-law and all he can concentrate on is a recurring nightmare\u2014a mysterious male figure stands in a snowy glade beckoning him to cross over -that keeps playing in his head. His premonition becomes a reality when both the doc and trusted family psychic give him no more than a few months to live.<\/p>\n

There is this sublimely surreal moment of CGI artistry that I had to see again in order to believe. Uxbal continues to make his rounds, burdened with the fresh news of his pending mortality. Several knocks bring no answer, and as he recedes from the glass door Uxbal\u2019s reflection is no longer in sync with his physical being, a subtle indication that he\u2019s losing his identity as he prepares to make the transition.<\/p>\n

Fans of the afterlife who couldn\u2019t wait to see \u201cHereafter\u201d or \u201cUndertow\u201d might well look at this as a cosmic capper. Other have called I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s ideas soft, but he\u2019s making a movie not constructing a theological treatise. At this point in time, his message of deliverance through darkness will no doubt bring comfort to a lot of people. And in spite of that I still like it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBiutiful\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

Directed by <\/strong>Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu<\/p>\n

Escrito por <\/strong>Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, Armando Bo and Nicol\u00e1s Giacobone<\/p>\n

Protagonizada por: <\/strong>Javier Bardem, Maricel \u00c1lvarez, Guillermo Estrella and Diaryatou Daff<\/p>\n

Clasificaci\u00f3n: <\/strong>4 Stars<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Marks | SDUN Film Critic The only trace of irony or sentiment to be found in \u201cBiutiful\u201d is contained in the title, a misspelling found in a hand scrawled refrigerator note posted by Uxbal\u2019s (Javier Bardem) young daughter. How many times have you heard me moan about characterless filmmakers lacking the courage of […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1292,"featured_media":244140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Film review: Character-driven film provides 'biutiful,' yet tragic, trajectory","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}