Biutiful
| Biutiful | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
| Produced by | Alejandro González Iñárritu Jon Kilik Fernando Bovaira Ann Ruark Sandra Hermida |
| Written by | Alejandro González Iñárritu Armando Bó, Jr Nicolás Giacobone |
| Starring |
Javier Bardem Luo Jin Maricel Álvarez Hanaa Bouchaib Guillermo Estrella Diaryatou Daff Cheng Tai Shen Nasser Saleh |
| Music by | Gustavo Santaolalla |
| Cinematography | Rodrigo Prieto |
| Edited by | Stephen Mirrione |
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Production
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| Distributed by |
LD Entertainment Roadside Attractions (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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147 minutes |
| Country | Mexico Spain |
| Language | Spanish Chinese Wolof |
| Box office | $25.1 million |
Biutiful is a 2010 Mexican-Spanish drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring Javier Bardem. It is González Iñárritu's first feature since Babel and fourth overall, and his first film in his native Spanish language since his debut feature Amores perros. The title Biutiful refers to the phonological spelling in Spanish of the English word beautiful.
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards in 2011: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor for Javier Bardem. Bardem's nomination makes his performance the first entirely Spanish-language performance to be nominated for that award. Bardem also received the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his work on the film.
Uxbal lives in a shabby apartment in Barcelona with his two young children, Ana and Mateo. He is separated from their mother Marambra, a woman suffering from alcoholism and bipolar disorder. Having grown up an orphan, Uxbal has no family other than his brother Tito, who works in the construction business. Uxbal earns a living by procuring work for illegal immigrants and managing a group of Chinese women producing forged designer goods along with the African street vendors who are selling them. He is able to talk to the dead and is sometimes paid to pass on messages from the recently deceased at wakes and funerals. When he is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer leaving him with only a few months to live, his world progressively falls apart.
Uxbal initially begins chemotherapy, but he later ends the treatment at the advice of his friend and traditional healer Bea. She also gives him two black stones which she asks him to give his children before he dies. The group of Africans are brutally arrested by the police despite Uxbal's regular bribes because of their involvement with drugs. When his friend Ekweme faces deportation to Senegal, Uxbal offers Ekweme's wife Ige and their baby son a room in his apartment. Meanwhile, an attempt at reconciliation with Marambra fails when Uxbal realizes she cannot be trusted to raise his children. Tito brokers a deal to put the Chinese to work at a construction site. However, almost all of them die while asleep in the basement of their sweatshop due to malfunctioning gas heaters installed by Uxbal. An attempt by a human trafficker to dump the bodies into the sea fails when they are washed up on the shore shortly after.
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Wikipedia