Contemporary Latino Film - Essay Example

? Number] Comparison of Films: 21 Grams and Biutiful Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is a director with adistinctive style of storytelling which is recognized by many critics and appreciated by many film lovers. 21 Grams is a film that was released in 2003 in which the director followed his disjointed style but he broke this trend with his latest film Biutiful released in 2011. The common factors about his films are his themes of love, religion, fate, alienation, compassion and interconnectedness. He has directed some of the best films ever seen in the industry with his unique style of storytelling evidently seen in his films. The main difference between the two films has been the chronology of the storytelling. The first three films of Inarritu depicted his unique style of storytelling having multiple stories with non-chronological scenes which were interconnected to one another. Biutiful was not a film in that style of storytelling rather it had linear and chronological events occurring (Deleyto 19). 21 grams is a story of three individuals who come from different walks of life and somehow their stories connect to each other. The director shows the past, present and future of every character with scenes set non-chronologically. The main issue is an accident and how it changed the lives of the three individuals. The film plot shows scenes from the past and the future arrangement (Russo 63). The main characters are Jack, Paul and Cristina. Jack is an ex-convict who has been sent and released from prison several times, and then he is finding his new religious faith in order to overcome his drug addiction. Paul is a mathematician who is living his last days due to a bad heart condition and needs an organ donor. His wife continually insists to donate his sperm so that she could get pregnant even after he dies. The third character is Cristina who was a former drug addict and is recovering towards a normal life with her husband and children. The three individuals connect to each other when Cristina’s family is killed by Jack in an accident and the heart of her husband is donated to Paul who starts to recover. Paul wants to start a new life but is not content with his wife’s constant forcing to donate his sperm, and also finds out she has had an abortion in the past, thus Paul leaves her and sets off to find out his heart donor. Cristina had returned to drugs when Paul finds out about her and they both get into a relationship. Both of them make a plan to murder Jack for what he did with Cristina’s family after he had been released. Jack, on the other hand is extremely guilty and after he is released he leaves his family. When Paul and Cristina find out where Jack is living they go to him, and Paul takes him to a corner with the intention to kill him. When Paul fails to do so, he tells Jack to simply disappear and lies to Cristina about Jack’s death. The same night, Jack returns to the couple due to guilt and Cristina starts beating him. Paul suffers a heart attack and to avoid dying from asphyxia, he shoots himself. Cristina’s revenge remains unresolved and Jack returns to his family in the end. The urge for revenge of Cristina and the guilt of Jack resulted in the death of the relatively innocent Paul (Ebert 705). 21 Grams is a powerful dramatic film with themes such as death occurs by chance not by choice, our lives are tragic, appreciate relationships, life goes on, looking at life beyond money and God. Some of the most powerful relationships are also presented in the film including mother and daughter, father and son, men and women which resulted in a fusion of a dramatic film plot. The film Biutiful is about a single parent who rises up his children in the worst conditions of a poor family living in Barcelona. Uxbal does not have a stable job and yet takes good care of his children like a responsible parent; providing food, care, after-school care etc. Soon after he finds out that he is suffering from a terminal disease which is incurable and he has only a few months to live. The main aim of Uxbal’s remaining life is to find someone who would care for his children after he dies. Uxbal’s character is a strong character that has a complicated relationship with his wife Marambra. He had been separated from Marambra due to her drug addiction and a bipolar disorder, and thus he cannot leave his children to her as she has been careless every time she was around them. Another important aspect about Uxbal’s character is his ability to speak to the dead. He sometimes also gets paid to convey the messages of the recently deceased to their relatives at their funerals. Uxbal has a battle of spirituality and emotional instability that is raging in him. This battling helps him to fight the law breaking and criminal activities that he carries out for example providing the illegal immigrants of China with a sweatshop (Deveny 126). One night a tragic accident takes place due to Uxbal’s fault and all the Chinese immigrants die while they are asleep. The guilt of the accident adds to the burdens of Uxbal as he gets closer to death. He also gives a place to Ige to stay whose husband has been arrested and deported. He hands over his savings to Ige and trusts her to take care of his children, and lies besides his children and dies. Two of the most important issues that have been highlighted by the director in this film are illegal immigrants and thanatophobia. The director has shown the massive margins of societies here. He has not shown the Barcelona that the audience sees in pictures and television, rather he has shown the society of people living in dingy apartments and seedy side streets. The film shows how the Chinese immigrants suffer in their effort to gain a foothold in the new place and society. Inarritu’s films; 21 Grams and Biutiful show two different types of societies that the audience could relate to. 21 Grams is a film showing three different Americans coming from different backgrounds and how their lives finally meet at a point. Biutiful is an entirely different society of Barcelona shown which focuses on the average life of a man and his family. The locations and societies shown in both the films are not similar however can be linked with one another. Inarritu sees the world around him as a fascinating, welcoming, tragic and unpredictable place where people more or less go through the same tragic lives and in the end have to die no matter they want to or not. Inarritu does not see the world as a luxurious place where money can buy everything; rather his films show the realities that go beyond the money and love of God. No matter how rich and luxurious cities the characters are living in, by the end they are struck by the truth of life (Deveny 126). The themes, links and characters are an important and interesting part of both the films. 21 Grams is a typical Inarritu film which contains three different stories and how they link to each other in the end. One accident changes the lives of all three characters and then they find new objectives to live with. The best part is how the audience can link with the social implications shown in the film. The audience is able to relate and understand the emotions of the characters as the story unfolds. The accident, the faith and the disrupted and difficult lives of the characters is all realistic seeing which the audience accept it as their own story. The contexts of narratives that are unfolded continually force the audience to evaluate the ethical considerations in the work. The interconnectivity shows how we are connected to each other as the global audience (Marsh 96). The characters and themes in Biutiful revolve around love, family, emotions, guilt and death. The characters used in the film are marginalized which means in an era of globalization the film covers a lot of people. The most interesting part is that even though many films only focus on the wealthy class or the middle class people, not the poor and struggling ones. Biutiful is about a number of underclass people and their sufferings in all societies around the world. These are the people with real problems who usually end up real bad if there is no miracle in their life. Many of the viewers could feel the story of every character, not just Uxbal’s, and understand the struggle they faced mentally, emotionally and socially. The emotion that the director put in was strong enough to attract many viewers who were probably not even from that background. There are some themes of both films that are similar to each other for instance love, death and guilt. Both films have intense love relationships based on trust. Biutiful shows a relationship of Uxbal and Ige which is based on his trust that she will take care of his children even after he dies. 21 Grams shows a love relationship between Paul and Cristina which is so strong that she includes him in her plan to kill Jack and trusts him when he says he did so. Death is a common element in the film which gives an immense impact on the viewer with a great message. Paul’s death in 21 Grams was because of the guilt of Jack and the revenge that Cristina badly wanted to take. Uxbal in Biutiful had never seen a traditional family in his childhood which is why he gave support to Ige and helped her, whereas in 21 Grams the family theme was also greatly shown when Cristina was immensely depressed due to her family’s accident (Marsh 96). The plots of the films are different since 21 Grams has a non linear storytelling pattern whereas Biutiful shows a linear series of events that are taking place in Uxbal’s life. Both the films have strong plots because the stories are strong. The director may have used a different approach to direct the film but his themes have emerged strongly in both films and proved to be the strengths of the films. He brings out twists and turns in the story which attracts the audience and moves their minds as they could never have thought of that (Deveny 126). The way the director has used the plotting in 21 Grams is his signature style that he has used in his previous films as well. When he connects three or four stories he tends to show the past, present and future simultaneously which may confuse the viewer as well as attract them. The viewers may be in confusion till the last ten minutes of the film when everything starts to get assembled and the viewer understands the storyline. In each plot whether from the past, present or future of the characters, there is a connection which serves the plots and makes them even more interesting (Ebert 705). Biutiful does not have this style and yet the tragic, suspense and intense story appeals and hits the viewers greatly. Both the films contain stories that are truly relevant to the lives of people despite their location. 21 Grams is a film which contains mostly American characters and is based on an American society and yet it can relate to a large number of international audiences. This is because of the story which is used and the themes that describe the characters and the worlds they inhabit. Even though Biutiful is based on a poor society of Barcelona, its story and message has greatly reached the audiences around the globe. The common themes of love, faith, religion, guilt, poverty, struggle, death and accidents have largely attracted the audiences not only in the region where the films are released but to the people around the globe. Both the films have been welcomed wholeheartedly and loved by all types of viewers. Work Cited Deleyto Celestino. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. USA: University of Illinois Press, 2010. Print. Deveny Thomas. Migration in Contemporary Hispanic Cinema. USA: Scarecrow Press, 2012. Print. Ebert Roger. Movie Yearbook 2006. USA: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2005. Print. Marsh Clive. Theology Goes to the Movies: An Introduction to Critical Christian Thinking. NY: Routledge, 2007. Print. Russo Eduardo. The Film Edge: Contemporary Filmmaking in Latin America. USA: Teseo, 2010. Print. Read More