“The profound struggle of a human soul”: the movie Michael Mann calls pure poetry
Not every renowned auteur is obligated to concern themselves with drama in the conventional sense. Michael Mann is one such master who has turned his attention to stories deeply rooted in the aching realities of humanity that don’t have a single genre trapping. He’s footloose, had-hitting and always thrilling.
One of the best in the business at crafting an exciting, propulsive, and eminently stylish thriller, Mann has generally hewed closely to crime when indulging his preferred method of storytelling. Thief, Manhunter, Heat, Collateral, Miami Vice, Public Enemies, and Blackhat all tick that box, with The Last of the Mohicans and The Keep standing as outliers, given their respective statuses as an adventurous historical epic and a supernatural horror flick.
He’s never helmed a fictional drama, but he’s nonetheless displayed a knack for the biopic. The Insider, Ali, and Ferrari are all ripped from real life, each of them bearing elements of classic drama inspirations. So, even though it’s not an arena he’s ever concerned himself with playing in, a bloody-nosed and intimate story about the human experience stands tall as one of his favourite movies.
Written, directed, and produced by Alejandro González Iñárritu with the other two of the so-called ‘Three Amigos’ involved behind the scenes after Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón served as associate producers, Biutiful saw Javier Bardem become the first name in history to secure an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actor’ for a performance entirely in Spanish. The film also marked Iñárritu’s first in his native tongue since his debut Amores perros.
Bardem’s Uxbal is faced with some dire circumstances, living in a rundown home with his two young children, whom he shares with an alcoholic prostitute with bipolar disorder. He scrapes by securing the work of illegal Chinese immigrants who make knock-off designer goods that are then sold on the streets while supplementing his income by communing with the dead as a medium at wakes and funerals. However, when he’s diagnosed with terminal cancer, his already bad situation becomes even worse.
Those are tough enough circumstances as it is, but when bribery, death, despair, deportation, and scandal enter the fray, Biutiful becomes an even tougher watch. For Mann, though, Iñárritu’s depiction of “the profound struggle of a human soul through the lower depths of Barcelona street life” is one of the greatest movies he’s ever seen.
As he told the British Film Institute, “Biutiful is resplendent with grace, pathos, and love,” with the powerful drama being celebrated as “pure poetry” on a cinematic level. It landed an Oscar nomination for ‘Best International Feature Film’ to go along with Bardem’s nod, but for whatever reason, general audiences simply weren’t interested.
Biutiful flopped at the box office after falling well short of recouping its $35million budget, and while it’s debatable as to whether or not it can even be included among Iñárritu’s finest features considering the body of work he’s accumulated over the years, Mann was completely blown away.