Javier Bardem was convinced he would not go into the family business. The Spanish actor, whose soulful intensity is rightfully coveted by filmmakers, was born into a moviemaking clan: his grandparents and then mother, Pilar, were working actors, while his uncle, Juan Antonio was a writer and director whose politics made life difficult under the Franco regime. Born in 1969, Bardem had his first film role at the age of six, but nonetheless trained as a painter. That sense of reluctance has never entirely dissipated; it gives his bull-chested bulk a physical grace and the roiling depths of his emotion a tender regret. Bardem will inhabit a role, but he holds himself open to all who watch. He’s an incredibly inclusive actor.
His career could have gone wrong several times, starting with his early feature film performances for director Bigas Luna in 1990’s The Ages of Lulu and 1992’s Jamon Jamon (which co-starred Bardem’s future wife, Penelope Cruz). A former rugby player, Bardem could play the macho brute with forceful ease. It might have been a profitable niche, but he took care in choosing his roles. Still in Spanish, then in English, he began to work internationally. After Al Pacino, one of Bardem’s idols, saw him in , Julian Schnabel’s 2000 biopic of the gay and eventually exiled Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, he left a message on Bardem’s answering machine extolling his work.
This century he’s made improbable roles into memorably defined interpretations. Anton Chigurh, his taciturn hitman with the haircut from Hell in the Coen’s 2007 has a spectral menace, while his take on a Bond Villain for Sam Mendes’ in 2012 is obsessive but dismissive, a force of nature happiest in his own head. Even the archetypal Woody Allen leading man was remade by Bardem for 2008’s . He could probably do with steering clear of Sean Penn productions, but Bardem understands his great talent – after several intense roles he did 2010’s with Julia Roberts because he wanted to exercise different acting muscles. When Javier Bardem’s on the screen everything – and everyone – bends towards him.
Biutiful
MA15+
Spain, Mexico, 2010
Genre: Drama
Language: Spanish
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Starring: Javier Bardem, Eduard Fernández
The Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu was renowned for his multi-strand narratives, films such as , and , that converged on contemporary themes from contrasting viewpoints. When he bore down on a single, flawed protagonist with Biutiful, Inarritu turned to Javier Bardem to embody a man who can feel himself slipping from this world to whatever is beyond. Playing Uxbal, a small-time Basque fixer operating in a rapidly changing Barcelona, Bardem is mesmerising as a man running just to stand still. He is the centre that cannot hold, and there are moments here, strange but fleeting, that are full of unspoken wonder.
Uxbal is a middle-man for globalisation’s black market – he pays off the police on behalf of African street hawkers and keeps an eye on a basement full of illegal Chinese sweatshop workers making knockoffs of luxury brands. He works out of circumstance, not choice, but his unease turns to fear when he learns he is terminally ill. Uxbal has custody of his two children, but he tries to reunite with his mentally unbalanced wife, Marambra (the terrific Maricel Alvarez) to safeguard their upbringing. Stories about the terminally ill can be maudlin and becalmed, but Biutiful has a fierce momentum. “Remember me, please,” Uxbal begs his daughter, and you realise that he fears he hasn’t done enough to earn even a single memory.
There are oblique but connected scenes that booked the picture, and they show how a minor moment, when infused with knowledge and desire and belief, can subsequently resonate with meaning. Spiritual elements circulate through the film, as a counterpoint to the increasingly bleak corruption Uxbal wades through, but Biutiful never tries to make you believe in something. Instead it simply shows you what Uxbal believes in, and with his body wasting away and his hope wavering, Bardem makes those observation wrenching. It’s a remarkable performance. - CM
[link title="Bardem plays Biutiful on- and off-screen" url="node/2450"]
[link title="Biutiful Review" url="node/5041"]
Source: SBS Movies
Loving Pablo
MA 15+
Bulgaria, Spain, 2017
Genre: Crime, Drama
Language: English, Spanish
Director: Fernando Leon de Aranoa
Starring: Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Julieth Restrepo
In this 2017 , Bardem says he had been asked "many times" to play drug lord Pablo Escobar: "I never got the depth that I was looking for, in the sense that I wanted to create a real person. Not an iconic or symbolic kind of ‘villain’. He was a human being. I’m saying that not to ignore the horrors he caused, but to understand that we are him and he is us, and we have created him. We are responsible for creating and supporting him and people like him every time we do cocaine and every time we know somebody who is doing cocaine or supporting politicians who are supported by corrupt narcotic money, you know?
"And there is nothing cool about it. Other versions, especially TV versions, make it look like it’s cool to be Escobar, but it’s not. It’s horrible. And that’s why I’ve chased my own vision to make it more closer to the real events in order to recognise that he is a person and also to show that he was a monster." - Fiona Williams
mother!
MA 15+
United States of America, 2017
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Language: English
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Brian Gleeson, Domhnall Gleeson
Darren Aronofsky's epic is an allegory about many things: the environment, the creative process (and those in relationships with creators), gender roles, the bible. Take your pick. There's a lot in there. And Javier Bardem brings his brooding intensity as an intense writer who puts his partner Jennifer Lawrence through the wringer, in a tale of unwanted house guests that goes to hell and back. We can't spoil it because we wouldn't even know where to start.
Watch Mother! at SBS on Demand.
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