I loved Biutiful, even if it is a dark experience, depressing and sad. It feels bad, but somehow it is worth it, because to feel is to live. Well, it is a drama, but Biutiful also offers a point of view about Barcelona, Catalan society and its social services, and I would like to comment on that, because I live here, and as a public servant I know them quite well. Of course anybody can have a bad experience living in the poorest social layers (socioeconomically speaking) in any European country, but the film presents brutal police forces that either beat people to death, or accept bribes and then betray them; a health system that does not even look a patient in the eye to take some tests or to give bad news, and also nonexistent (or unreliable?) social services to help minors in difficult situations. I think anybody can have bad experiences with any of these parts of the administration or social welfare, but with all of them, and with such brutality, it is not realistic. The system that takes care of kids in difficult family situations is effective and efficient (I know first hand, I work with them), saving and rescuing hundreds of children that have been abandoned or mistreated by their parents, and giving them proper care and education; the police sometimes are hard and unfair, and sometimes corrupt (thare has been a case just now about a corrupt mosso) but it is not what characterize them, rather the opposite, and the public health care system is having now financial problems with the international crisis, but it is one of the best in the world, attending patients from anywhere without discrimination. Again, you can have a bad experience in any of theses fields, but in general, the portrayal of the Catalan social system in Biutiful in untrue an unfair. We receive a high number of European citizens who come to live or to receive medical treatment in Catalonia every day, to put but an example. The film is well informed regarding popular culture like for example football, or social problems like improper contracts in construction or housing precariousness in some areas of the city, but regarding the public system, sorry to say, the film is not correct, and in that sense looses some of its value. Bardem, as usual, magnifico.
Review of Biutiful
