I don't think I will ever out-and-out love an Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu film. I hated Babel and none of his other titles have appealed to me enough to watch them. I probably would never have picked this one up if it hadn't been nominated for Best Actor and Best Foreign Film a couple of years ago. That doesn't mean I can't recognize them as beautiful pieces of art, just that they are not to my personal tastes.Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and only has a few months to live. He is the sole provider for his two children, since their mother (Maricel Alvarez) is bipolar and frequently off her meds. There's also the little matter of Uxbal's profession as a black marketeer. Running a group of Senegalese fake purse hawkers and managing a sweatshop of Chinese laborers in Spain isn't the type of thing that comes with a pension plan or health insurance. Still, Uxbal is determined to atone for the wrongs he has committed before death comes to take him away.
Inarritu infuses his poignant elegy with a dark, lyrical beauty as well as a touch of the supernatural. Uxbal sees the spirits of the lingering dead and receives messages from them for those they left behind. This ability to grant closure is contrasted with the sub-plot about his own unresolved issues with a father he never knew who died in Mexico after fleeing Franco's regime.
Like I said, it'll never be one of my favorites but it's an exceptionally well-done film and I can see how other people would enjoy it.
No comments:
Post a Comment