By Daniel J. Hoag
The 83rd Academy Awards are here, and though this race is all but over, you can still take a look at the Haiku Review’s Oscar Spotlight focusing on the category of Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Javier Bardem is no stranger to Oscar: this is his third nomination, and he won Best Supporting Actor a few years back for his memorable performance as the psychopathic Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. And if going to a dark place for that role weren’t enough, Bardem practically drowns in bleakness for his role in Biutiful, a nominee for Best Foreign Film. Bardem plays Uxbal, a single father from Barcelona who is dying a painful death from cancer, unable to trust the futures of his children to his emotionally unstable, alcoholic ex-wife. As if that weren’t miserable enough, he’s surrounded by the hard knock lives of illegal immigrants he traffics in (for money), many of whom suffer poverty, slave wages, sweatshop working conditions, deportation, and gruesome death. And he kinda sees dead people. Through it all Bardem wears sorrow and hopelessness like an old sweater, frayed and sagging from age. But as bleak and distubing as the movie is around him, Bardem’s performance is, indeed, beautiful–no matter how you spell it. Continue reading →