His latest film, Poetry (2010), was one of subtle yet captivating force. Poetry advanced in a somewhat slow rhythm until the end, when a collage of events unfold. The story is about Yang Mija (Yoon Jeong-hee), a sixty-six year old woman who begins to grow interest for poetry while struggling with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and her irresponsible grandson. Faced with the discovery of a heinous family crime, she starts to find strength and purpose from her poetry class. The film is an exploration of complex human conditions, boldly displaying the existential aspects of life. The scenic shots are spacious – lyrical in composition, which at times weave into the deeply sentimental narratives. Nevertheless, Poetry achieves at reflecting positive moments within the worst conditions of life.
A couple weeks ago I saw Biutiful (2010) by my all-time favorite director Alejandro González Iñárritu. The film was profoundly esoteric, and unbearably-heavy. I never felt at such loss to interpret my visual experience, but I will admit that the narrative was difficult to manifest. Javier Bardem’s performance in Biutiful was riveting, he bought the film to life. Biutiful is a love story between a father and his children, a story of a man in free fall.
Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is a conflicted man who struggles to reconcile fatherhood, love, spirituality, crime, guilt and mortality amidst the dangerous underworld of modern Barcelona. His livelihood is earned out of bounds, his sacrifices for his children know no bounds. Uxbal struggles with a tainted reality and a fate that works against him in order to forgive, for love, and forever. As fate encircles him and thresholds are crossed, a dim, redemptive road brightens, illuminating the inheritances bestowed from father to child, and the paternal guiding hand that navigates life’s corridors, whether bright or bad.
Biutiful is a grim and human film, every moment is thoughtful and compelling. The slice of family life in a small quarter of Barcelona is not glossed over like most Hollywood films. The story enthralls us into the grey lives of those living on the frayed edges of society – the Senegalese immigrants, Chinese sweatshop workers, and corrupt cops. And amidst all the chaos and overwhelming structure of events, Uxbal manages to keep some ray of light amongst the darkness that is closing in on him from the realms of his grim unfortunate reality. On the threshold of his toilet in the end, Uxbal along with the company of his daughter and a refugee woman, is finally able to reach the surface of his dignity again.
Biutiful does not allow us to escape from reality, but rather confronts us with reality. It remains a truly emotional and even spiritual masterpiece of the most magnificent kind. And just like Javier Bardem’s amazing achievement to make us weep and at the same time feel happy, the director gifts us with faith that Uxbal was able to sustain out of the cold and unjust misery that chased him all along his final destiny.
Poetry and Biutiful can be categorized on opposite spectrum’s of the film genre, but both signify the message of ‘hope’ out of the depths of despair, told through the lives of two lost individuals that eventually find themselves through acts of redemption. Like life itself, there is a circular tale where the end is at the start, and where darkness lights the way. Not everything in life ends up happily ever after, in fact life seems to have more darkness than light as we are all surviving each day in our own ways, but the point here remains that one should find the beauty amidst the grim reality.
hilitehead 
elaborate?