As a mother of two I cry at pretty much anything (I’ve admitted this before I know), and my three highlights on Rialto Channel this week have all left me with mascara issues. I’ve been both very sad and quite enchanted by the characters I’ve met along the way.
As a mother of two I cry at pretty much anything (I’ve admitted this before I know), and my three highlights on Rialto Channel this week have all left me with mascara issues. I’ve been both very sad and quite enchanted by the characters I’ve met along the way.
March features Rialto’s Oscar Collection, a selection of Oscar nominees and winners from 2011, and this week we’re premiering on television the Nicole Kidman produced Rabbit Hole, documentary Waste Land starring visual artist Vik Muniz, and an extraordinary performance by Javier Bardem in Biutiful.
Let’s start with Biutiful (Tuesday 20th March, 8.30pm), the latest offering from Mexican director Alejandro González Inarritu. A fan of films filled with a collection of stories that interweave precariously (21 Grams, Amores Perros, Babel), Inarritu this time focuses on just one character in this seedy drama. It’s a return to form for the intense director - not that he’d lost that much form, but rather he’d not quite hit one out of the park of late. Biutiful received 2 Oscar nominations for best foreign language film and best performance by an actor in a leading role (Bardem).
Perhaps 20 minutes too long, this heartbreaking meditation on life and death, love and family, and the supernatural and the spiritual is entrancing. This is for the most part thanks to Bardem’s performance as Uxbal, a solo father and Barcelona lowlife struggling to make ends meet for his family. He’s also got to deal with his bipolar ex wife, Chinese gangsters, illegal immigrants; all while he’s dying of cancer. It’s like Inarritu couldn’t stand having a simpler setup so he’s just given the multiple storylines he likes so much to one character. It should all be too much, but thanks to Bardem’s genuine and heartbreaking performance it works. Biutifully.
Superb performances also define Rabbit Hole (Saturday 24th March, 8.30pm) staring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as a middle class suburban couple trying to recover from the accidental death of their four-year-old son. When we meet Becca and Howie Corbett eight months has passed since their loss, and this is very honest and raw exploration of guilt and grief as a once happy couple struggle to re-connect with each other and the world.
It’s not the cheeriest subject matter, but Kidman was right when she spotted the reviews of David Lindsay-Abaire’s play and thought the play was Oscar material – she received the best performance by an actress nomination as Becca to prove it. She hadn’t actually seen the play, but knew it was perfect material for her production company Blossom films, and she took on not just the leading role but producing duties as well.
“I was just really captivated by this couple who share an extraordinary, deep tragedy and yet they react in such very different ways. They have to grieve in their own ways and yet still live together. I found that very fascinating and I really wanted to play Becca, who was so brilliantly brought to life on Broadway by Cynthia Nixon. I was so excited to help introduce that character to a movie-going audience.” Kidman says.
Playwright Lindsay-Abaire was asked to write an adaptation of his play. While many screenwriters lament how their work is treated in Hollywood Lindsay-Abaire couldn’t be more positive about his experience working with Kidman and co-producer Per Saari.
“Right away, Per told me they wanted me to feel the same sense of ownership as I had with the play. Of course, writers are never told that, but they were true to their word. I was involved at every turn, and not a single line of what I wrote was changed” says Lindsay-Abaire.
Waste Land (Thursday 22nd March, 8.30pm) is my final pick for the week. A best documentary, feature Oscar nominee it was filmed predominantly at the world's largest land fill, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Directed by Lucy Walker, the film was shot over 3 years as world famous New York based Brazilian visual artist Vik Muniz created beautiful portraits of an eclectic band of "catadores" -- or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Their stories are heartbreaking and yet their dignity is inspirational, and it’s moving to watch them re-think their lives after their experience of working with Muniz.
Grab those tissues, and don’t miss it.