LES “DUES BARCELONES” I EL SEU CAPITALISME GORE: EL COS DE L’IMMIGRANT COM A ESPAI DE TENSIÓ A BIUTIFUL (IÑÁRRITU, 2010)

GARCÍA, ALBA MARCÉ

Catalan Review (2018), 32, (1), 85–100.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/CATR.32.6
Language: English
Pages: 16

Abstract

The immigrant body struggling to survive in the neoliberal city is one of the main topics in Biutiful (2010), directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. The film explores how corporeality and urban environment (re)produce and relate to each other in the context of the city of Barcelona. In this article I argue that Iñárritu reads the immigrant body as a site of tension, upon which the conflict between two facets of Barcelona (the touristic, global, city and the marginal city) is performed. The director reduces the city’s urban distribution to "two Barcelonas" to emphasize that immigrants carry the burden of the metropolis’ savage neoliberal practices and that its bodies are injured as a result. Even when Barcelona’s neoliberal system is portrayed as hardly escapable, I also propose that the movie problematizes the concept of hope through immigration as a global phenomenon, some female bodies, and the space of the sea. To advance my point, I establish a dialogue with authors such as Sayak Valencia and Edgar Illas, whose works reflect on the city, the body, and neoliberalism. While Biutiful has been discussed in academia, especially the movie’s critique of late capitalist Barcelona, this article focuses on the immigrants’ corporeality, an interpretation of the film that has not been explored yet.

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GARCÍA, ALBA MARCÉ

Catalan Review