Biutiful

"Biutiful" is a movie. Javier Bardem portrays an everyman, caught in a lower middle class life in modern Barcelona. After I heard the last echoes of praise for the late Steve Jobs yesterday, I sat down for this long (148 minutes) common-man epic. "Biutiful" shows a very different life from a Steve Jobs obituary.

I think the film brilliantly portrays life in an overpopulated and under-resourced world. It goes rather easy on exposing class inequality, I would say, but it shines a bright light on the lives of millions, perhaps billions, of human beings on the planet. I highly recommend it. It is widely available via streaming or DVD rental.

As a person outside the reproductive culture of heterosexuals. I was astounded once again by the lack of introspection about heterosexual reproduction among those who are incapable of being financially responsible for providing even the most basic security and health-promotion for their offspring. I was also amused by the well-worn use of homosexuals in the film as arch villains.

The film conveys an impression that the writers feel that we are all hapless victims of life. This seems consistent with the film's roots in Latino-Catholic culture. However, I viewed the film from the position of a humanist and a clinician. It is a good case study in one man's life. An uneducated man who sees his responsibility in life as solely focused on his own offspring first and the rest of the world thereafter. This is suitably instinctive, but hardly enlightened or mindful.

Taking responsibility for our decisions is perhaps the most difficult part of the human condition. Taking the bad results of our decision, regardless of their original motivations, and responsibly making the best of those consequences are the measure of our development as the best human beings we can be. As a humanist, I see Uxbal (Bardem) as struggling his way to some understanding of his condition. But, ultimately, he is weighed down by superstition, lack of education and conformity to what his society expects of him.