Biutiful
"Was he at the movies to see a movie, she said, or maybe more narrowly, more essentially, simply to be at the movies?
He thought about this.
He could stay home and watch TV, movie after movie, on cable, three hundred channels, she said, deep into the night. He wouldn’t have to get from theater to theater, subways, buses, worry, rush, and he’d be far more comfortable, he’d save himself money, he’d eat half-decent meals.
He thought about this. It was obvious, wasn’t it, that there were simpler alternatives. Every alternative was simpler. A job was simpler. Dying was simpler. But he understood that her question was philosophical, not practical. She was probing his deeper recesses. Being at the movies to be at the movies. He thought about this. He owed her the gesture.
The woman entered as the feature began. He hadn’t seen her in a while and was surprised to realize, only now, that he’d noted her absence. She was a recent enlistee—is that the word? He wasn’t sure when she’d started showing up. She seemed awkward, slightly angular, and she was far younger than the others. There were others, the floating group of four or five people who made the circuit every day, each keeping to his or her rigid schedule, crisscrossing the city, theater to theater, mornings, nights, weekends, years.
Leo did not count himself part of the group. He did not speak to the others, ever, not a word, not a look directed their way. He saw them nonetheless, now and then, here and there, one or the other. They were vague shapes with pasty faces, planted among the lobby posters in their weary clothing, restless bearing, their postoperative posture.
He tried not to care that there were others. But how could it fail to disturb him? The sightings were unavoidable, one person at the Quad, another the next day at the Sunshine, two of them at Empire 25 in the vast rotunda or on the long steep narrow escalator that seems to lead to some high-rise form of hell.
But this was different, she was different, and he was watching her. She was seated two rows in front of him, end of the row, with the first images bringing pale light to the front of the house."
an excerpt of "The Starveling", a storie of the book "The Angel Esmeralda" by Don DeLillo.
"Biutiful is a drama film directed by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring Javier Bardem. It is González Iñárritu's first feature since Babel and fourth overall, and his first film in his native Spanish language since his debut feature Amores perros. The title Biutiful refers to the phonological spelling in Spanish of the English word beautiful.
Uxbal lives in a shabby apartment in Barcelona with his two young children, Ana and Mateo (played by Hanaa Bouchaib and Guillermo Estrella, respectively). He is separated from their mother Marambra, an unreliable and reckless woman suffering from alcoholism and bipolar disorder. Having grown up an orphan, Uxbal has no family other than his brother Tito, who works in the construction business. Uxbal earns a living by organizing work of illegal immigrants, a group of Chinese producing forged goods, and a group of African street vendors selling them. He is able to talk to the dead and is sometimes paid to pass on messages from the recently deceased at wakes and funerals. When he is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and is told to only have a few months to live, his world progressively falls apart." in Wikipedia
"Was he at the movies to see a movie, she said, or maybe more narrowly, more essentially, simply to be at the movies?
He thought about this.
He could stay home and watch TV, movie after movie, on cable, three hundred channels, she said, deep into the night. He wouldn’t have to get from theater to theater, subways, buses, worry, rush, and he’d be far more comfortable, he’d save himself money, he’d eat half-decent meals.
He thought about this. It was obvious, wasn’t it, that there were simpler alternatives. Every alternative was simpler. A job was simpler. Dying was simpler. But he understood that her question was philosophical, not practical. She was probing his deeper recesses. Being at the movies to be at the movies. He thought about this. He owed her the gesture.
The woman entered as the feature began. He hadn’t seen her in a while and was surprised to realize, only now, that he’d noted her absence. She was a recent enlistee—is that the word? He wasn’t sure when she’d started showing up. She seemed awkward, slightly angular, and she was far younger than the others. There were others, the floating group of four or five people who made the circuit every day, each keeping to his or her rigid schedule, crisscrossing the city, theater to theater, mornings, nights, weekends, years.
Leo did not count himself part of the group. He did not speak to the others, ever, not a word, not a look directed their way. He saw them nonetheless, now and then, here and there, one or the other. They were vague shapes with pasty faces, planted among the lobby posters in their weary clothing, restless bearing, their postoperative posture.
He tried not to care that there were others. But how could it fail to disturb him? The sightings were unavoidable, one person at the Quad, another the next day at the Sunshine, two of them at Empire 25 in the vast rotunda or on the long steep narrow escalator that seems to lead to some high-rise form of hell.
But this was different, she was different, and he was watching her. She was seated two rows in front of him, end of the row, with the first images bringing pale light to the front of the house."
an excerpt of "The Starveling", a storie of the book "The Angel Esmeralda" by Don DeLillo.
"Biutiful is a drama film directed by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring Javier Bardem. It is González Iñárritu's first feature since Babel and fourth overall, and his first film in his native Spanish language since his debut feature Amores perros. The title Biutiful refers to the phonological spelling in Spanish of the English word beautiful.
Uxbal lives in a shabby apartment in Barcelona with his two young children, Ana and Mateo (played by Hanaa Bouchaib and Guillermo Estrella, respectively). He is separated from their mother Marambra, an unreliable and reckless woman suffering from alcoholism and bipolar disorder. Having grown up an orphan, Uxbal has no family other than his brother Tito, who works in the construction business. Uxbal earns a living by organizing work of illegal immigrants, a group of Chinese producing forged goods, and a group of African street vendors selling them. He is able to talk to the dead and is sometimes paid to pass on messages from the recently deceased at wakes and funerals. When he is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and is told to only have a few months to live, his world progressively falls apart." in Wikipedia