Biutiful - Alejandro González Iñárritu (spoiler alert)

Just saw this in the theater tonight, yet another amazing performance by Javier Bardem, he carried the whole fucking film on his shoulders with amazing subtlety and layers upon layers of depth, fucking amazing. The film (SPOILER ALERT) centers around a character stricken by prostate cancer, struggling alongside poverty and parenthood as he make ends meet as a father. What drew me in the most was the non-descript multiple parallel stories that weave in and out of the film: from Bardem's gift to communicate with the dead, to his exploitative yet ambiguous friendship with illegal immigrants living in Barcelona, to a face to face reconciliation with his dead father whom he has never met once in his life, carves a gray, surreal, sincere melodrama expertly handled by Alejandro González Iñárritu.

At the end of the film, a brief tender dedication goes out to Iñárritu's father, and I fell so hard and identified with this film thinking the way we go around things as men, and as artists, in our efforts to reconcile, or to come in to terms with our fathers, as with our eventual role in fatherhood that a lot of us dodge like guilt. This grey shadow of a figure that stands amidst our life, grafting us in his likeness as we inherit involuntary traits. I couldn't help but think of what fatherhood would be like, and the way you live your life now could come back and haunt you or salute you one day through your children.

I'm tripping myself out right now.

I'm sorry if I spoiled the film for you if you've read this far, but its a perfect film for a rainy day, and you will be rewarded with some thoughts when you walk out of the theater. Go see it, its a great film.