Alejandro González Iñárritu is on roll. In just a few short years, he’s gone from a fresh young face on the burgeoning Mexican filmmaking scene to an old guard captain who, along with his paisanos Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón, helped reinvigorate the country’s film industry. His 2000 breakout film, Amores Perros demonstrated the director’s brilliant mind for gritty, warts-and-all filmmaking. With 21 Grams and Babel he also put on display his fascinating ability to explore simultaneous storylines and criss-crossing narratives while also pinning those stories down with genuine human emotion and real-world purpose. But at the heart of all of his films is an affinity for showing the darker side of the human condition. And that’s certainly the case with Biutiful, a searing and often morose contemplation on living and dying.

Perhaps Iñárritu’s biggest weapon for punching through the sometimes-overwhelming stench of darkness is Javier Bardem who, even with his portrayal of a man in the latter stages of prostate cancer, is sometimes the brightest thing on the screen. Bardem plays Uxbal, a struggling dad trying to support his two children in the overrun Barrio Chino neighborhood of Barcelona, Spain.

An odd assortment of jobs, from running an operation of illegal Chinese immigrants that makes and sells knockoff designer bags to accepting money to speak with the dead, barely keeps Uxbal on his feet. That is until his bipolar ex-wife (newcomer Maricel Álvarez) occasionally shows back up in his life to knock him down again. He’s a reasonably caring man as he does nearly everything he can to help those around him despite his compromised level of energy due to debilitating illness. He’s a great father to his two children, and he treats his day laborers as if they are an extension of his own family. And when the wife of one of his Senegalese street peddlers -- who is facing deportation after a recent police raid -- needs assistance, he provides money and living space.

But even though his heart is in the right place, Uxbal’s actions often betray his better intentions. After a particular decision to improve the comfort of his throng of migrant workers turns deadly, the follow-up actions of Uxbal and his colleagues are of less than genuine care and concern. But he nonetheless mourns their loss and bears the weight of responsibility on his own faltering shoulders. Uxbal is kind of like the Tony Soprano of Barcelona: a friendly, cuddly everybody’s man on the inside, but a bumbling dolt whose actions never seem to quite work out as planned on the outside.

Beyond the selection of Bardem as the film’s lead, one of Iñárittu’s biggest accomplishments with the Spanish language Biutiful, as well as that of his co-screenwriter’s Armando Bo and Nicolás Giacobone, is the film’s unwillingness to allow viewers to judge Uxbal for his sometimes-contentious actions or feel pity towards him because of his illness. Iñárritu’s total immersion of his characters – and subsequently the viewer - into the seedy Barcelona under class makes us realize he’s just a by-product of circumstance… a normal person facing a very tough experience. Uxbal’s constant attention to the needs of his family and children makes us care for him even though we don’t always the like the choices he makes. That’s a difficult task for filmmakers to pull off, but because Iñárittu and Bardem are successful, so is the film.

Some viewers may find themselves a bit down in the dumps at the overwhelming despair and relentless anguish that permeates Biutiful. Its only real light can be found in Bardem’s performance, so don’t expect a happy ending… or much happiness at all for that matter. But if able to dig beneath the grunge and grime of the filthy streets of Barcelona (as well as the maddeningly gloomy mind of Iñárittu), you’re likely to find a bright, shining soul slicing through the shadows in the persona of a father named Uxbal. Biutiful is not one of the year’s five best films, but Bardem’s performance may very well be.

(Released by Roadside Attractions and rated “R” for disturbing images, language, some sexual content, nudity and drug use.)

Review also posted at www.franksreelreviews.com.