When M. and I went to see Biufitul by Iñárritu, we left the movie theatre without looking at each other saying a quick goodbye that meant “I need time to think about what we watched.” M. and I had agreed that no one should ask us “did you like it?” right after watching a movie. That would push us to make a quick judgment; instead we need at least 24 hours to let the images, dialogues, and music marinate in our soul. This movie hypnotizes the audience with strong color, music, and heart-tormenting stories.
In Biutiful there are multiple borderlands besides the obvious ones of race, class, and gender in a merciless contemporary Barcelona. We don’t see landmarks of the city; the geographical setting is irrelevant as any exploitative métropole is the same. Uxbal is the magic realist hero. His supernatural power makes him more aware of his surrounding, sometimes is a source of income, and helps the audience to cope with the despair of people’s lives as described in the film. The supernatural happens in the midst of new techniques to commodify the human body within a neo-colonial framework. This is not about the colonized turned into migrant but about the so-called "new world order" that makes us all victims (and perpetrators) of wild capitalism. Barcelona is the archetypical land of centers and peripheries, of corrupted police, of no-passport escapades, of sweatshops’ dreadfulness, and of strange solidarity.
A message that I want to get from this movie is that human relationships rescue us from the dehumanizing forces of global exploitation. This is not a story of good women and bad men. It’s much more subtle than that. It’s about our own possibilities of choosing, the good old free will. I am allowed though to have my favorites in this range of Biutiful characters. Bea is like Barcelona, motionless spectator of Uxbal's struggle, she is his magical refuge. Ige is the quintessential answer to human degrade; she is the woman of the right here and right now.
