Review of Biutiful

Movie: Biutiful

Year:  2012

Director:  Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Main Actors:  Javier Bardem, Maricel Alvarez, and Hanaa Bouchaib

Biutiful is about a man, Uxbal, who is coming to terms with his own death and preparing to die.   After being in a lot of pain for awhile, he goes to the doctor and finds out that he has cancer, which has metastasized, and he only has a few months to live.  Uxbal is far from ready to die.  He has so many people dependent on him and it seems that things keep going wrong for him. 

He works as a Middleman for a Chinese sweatshop.  He obtains knock-off goods from the Chinese and gives them to Senegalese men who sell them illegally on the streets.  Uxbal works with the police to keep all members from being arrested.  

The other people, and possibly the most important people, that rely on him are his children Ana and Mateo.  He is a single father; their mother is mentally unstable and an addict, so he takes care of them full time.  The question for him is: what will happen to them when he dies?

Uxbal starts saving money and putting it aside for his children, but he does not tell them or anyone how ill he is.  He feels bad for the Chinese workers and argues on their behalf for better living conditions.  The Chinese live in a locked basement, which gets very cold at night.  One day he goes out and buys heaters to make their nights better.  Uxbal buys the cheapest heaters, and all of the people who are in the basement die of asphyxiation.   The men who own the sweatshop do not know what to do.  One of the men decides to throw all of the dead bodies in the ocean and the wash up on shore. 

Another event of Uxbal’s tragic life is that one of his sellers gets caught in a police raid and the seller gets deported. His wife Ege and her child have nowhere to go.  Uxbal feels so responsible that, while he is living with his children’s mother, he lets her stay there.  

Uxbal’s biggest challenge is with his children.  He has so many mixed emotions about what to do.  Uxbal’s own father died when he was around his children’s age and Uxbal cannot remember him.  He only has faint memories.  He fears his children will not remember him when he is gone.   He also wants them to be well-taken care of when he is gone, but his options are slim.  At first, the children’s mother seems like a good option, so they move in with her as a “test-run”, but her mental illness gets in the way.  She hits Mateo and leaves him home all weekend by himself; there are several other examples of her poor parenting skills.  So Uxbal moves back to his apartment where Ege is staying.  Uxbal soon becomes reliant on Ege and he is more important to her than he ever could have imagined.

Uxbal has a friend who gave him two stones, one for each child, and told Uxbal when the end is near to give one to each child for protection.  Uxbal, at a belated party for his daughter, gives each child a stone. 

Ege takes care of him when his health deteriorates even further.  He cannot get out of bed for most of the day and life becomes more painful.  He asks Ege to take care of the children when he is gone and he gives her all of the money he has saved.  Soon his daughter finds out that he is dying and one of the last scenes is her lying in bed with him.

This movie portrays something that all humans no matter what country or time period they live in, will go through.  No one can escape death, but very little can make it easy to say goodbye, especially when there is so much left undone in the person’s life. This movie exemplifies the fear, the sadness, and power that dying has over someone’s life.  However, it shows people that they are not alone and while it does not glorify death, it depicts the human experience.

Quotes

“My love, what you see over there aren't stars. It's your nervous system.”

“Look in my eyes. Look at my face. Remember me, please. Don't forget me, Ana. Don't forget me, my love, please.”

“You can give up, let yourself go... or grit your teeth and hang on like stupid people do.”

Review of M

Movie: M

Year: 1931

Director: Fritz Lange

Main Actors:  Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, and Inge Landgut

M is a German film, which takes place in 1931.  When the movie begins we learn that eight children have already been killed and a little girl has not come home from school yet.  A mother is worried sick and there are posters all over the town asking "Wer ist der Mörder?"

The little girl becomes the ninth victim and the police have a mess on their hands.  They are clueless as to who is the murder.  In fact, at this point the murderer could be anyone.  So they start a hunt.   Every night the police conduct raids and are searching the town for the killer. They create hysteria in the town. Eventually, the killer sends a letter to the press and the police start their analysis and come up with a profile.     

The raids that the police are conducting are ruining the criminals business and the killer himself is ruining their image.  A group of criminals get together to come up with their own plan to catch the killer before their business is completely ruined.   The discussions seem to go on for a long time, but finally the gangsters came up with a solution.  They were going to keep an eye out for all of the children in the town.  They asked the beggars to watch the children and look for suspicious things. 

Nothing happens until a man whistling walks by the blind peddler who is selling the balloons.  The peddler recognizes the tune as the man who was whistling it came by and brought a balloon for a child the same day the last girl went missing.  He alerted the local beggar and big white “M” was drawn on the killers back.

The gangsters catch and then trap the killer in the basement, but the night watchman shows up and alerts the police.  The killer was sent to trial where he claimed to have been driven by evil voices in his head and an impulse.

This movie is important to the culture of the time in two ways.  The first is that since the police are everywhere and cannot find the killer, the people do not know who they can trust.  A little girl asks a man what time it is and he is attacked by a mob for talking to a child.   They are so worried, which hysteria sets in and anyone could have done anything.

The second aspect involves the organized criminals.  The criminals truly hated the murderer and they felt that they were more powerful than the police, so they set out to get the man.  They had unlimited resources and were willing to use them.  However, the criminals also gave way to the hysteria because their version of a trial, when they captured the man was to “kill the rabid dog”.  There seemed to be no end to the hysteria.  Interestingly, Lang hired real criminals for the last scene and 24 cast members were arrested during filming.  

At the end of the movie, after the real trial occurred because the night watchmen stopped the criminals from killing the man a mother in the crowd noted that it did not bring her child back.  Parents would just have to be more vigilant.

This movie was Lang’s first experiment with sound technology.  It is accredited as one of the first examples of film noir.  The movie was banned by the Nazis in 1934 and Lorre, who was Jewish, fled Germany after the film was released. About two years later, Lang also fled Germany because he was half Jewish. 

Overall, “M” is an excellent example of the hysteria that occurs when people do not know who is committing the crimes.  People are scared and it is so easy to point a finger at someone and eventually everyone.  At this point the times were changing in Germany and this movie exemplifies the fear and change in the people.

Quotes from M

“This won't bring back our children. We, too, should keep a closer watch on our children.”

“Just you wait, it won't be long. The man in black will soon be here. With his cleaver's blade so true. He'll make mincemeat out of YOU!”

found on Wikipedia