This is an impassioned, ambitious and moving film. The central character, Uxbal, played by Javier Bardem, is a metaphor for us all: whilst dying, he is coping with the circumstances of his life. The film is ambitious because it seeks to embody in its few characters the state of the contemporary, globalized world, with diverse ethnicities and nationalities rubbing against each other as they struggle to find a way to survive.
The film, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, is set in Barcelona, although any city would do for the film-maker's purpose. Uxbal wheels and deals among the population of 'illegals', trafficking Chinese workers and working with African street traders, whilst bribing the police to make it all work. He has a bipolar ex-wife and two children, and does his best to be a good father and to deal honestly generally. We are told at the outset that he is dying of cancer and has only a couple of months to live.
His wife, Marambra, played by Maricel Álvarez, is by turns loving, sexy, sluttish and unpredictable, but is incapable of being reliably a mother to their children who seem, particularly his daughter, to look very plausibly the product of these two people. A subversive voice in me wondered what Kiera Knightley might have made of Marambra's role. It is hard to image. This is the wild side of cinema, far removed from the sunny English gardens where Knightley is so comfortable. There are several scenes set at the family's dining table, as Uxbal alone cooks meals and nurtures and relates to his children.
The cinematography is glorious - grainy, contrasty, dynamic and imaginative. This is cinemaphotgraphy with attitude.
It is easy to read this as a political film, depicting the reality of globalization - an ideology driven by the USA for the benefit of the USA, and given the benign, user-friendly name of 'democracy'. It shows people - Africans and Chinese - uprooted and dispersed, and at the limit of desperation, with prosperity all around them, as they are stripped of their dignity in their struggle for survival. In the pursuit of prosperity no morals are required and no-one is to blame.
The perfomances of the two leads, Bardem and Álvarez, are excellent, as are the children.
