Biutiful

Someone told me once that he liked French cinema for it's depth and despised people who loved comedies and couldn't understand the beauty of some of our most appraised dramas. I couldn't agree less, because some films are actually pointlessly depressing, in my opinion. This is without any doubt that kind of artsy cinema I think about when thinking about Iñarritu's way of filming. However, I have been interested in Alejandro González Iñarritu's films ever since I watched 21 grams, and by seeing Biutiful I haven't been disappointed. My first advice, though, would be NOT to look at his films when sad, depressed, sick or in any other edgy state of mind, because his way of telling stories goes deep into the most sensitive parts of your brain!
However, both Alejandro Iñarritu and Javier Bardem are the good reasons to go see it; the directors manages to bring poetry in the utterly miserable life of his lost soul of a hero. Uxbal, magnificently played by Javier Bardem, is a single father who tries to get things right before leaving this world. He is not a hero so to speak; he daily deals with Barcelona's darkest sides, trying to help out illegal immigrants to make their way in the city, he tries to raise his daughter and son despite their bipolar mother, and he also fights a final stage cancer. His ordeals are the main plot of the film, and we follow him from bad to worse. Why Biutiful? Because amidst this constantly grey life, he manages to find some rays of light in the love of his children, and in the help he manages to give to others.which help him keep fighting. But nothing beautiful lasts in that pessimistic movie...