Biutiful

Mateo is going to die. He's going to wet his bed and then he's going to die. Isn't that what we do? Ana is going to die. Their father Uxbal, as it turns out, is going to die soon.

Uxbal doesn't know how he got here. There was a father whom he never met, died of pneumonia somewhere west across the ocean. The bottom of the sea can be something to fear, a threat that given half a chance will take you. You can be said to have survived that, but you can never be said to have escaped.

The Chinese workers have survived the ocean too. After an horrific accident, caused by Uxbal's negligence, the sea into which they're dumped has no call for them. They float to the shore, no more than a spilled cargo.

Uxbal has no time to come to terms with his actions. The cancer will take him within months. Spells of naussea and the urine which soaks his trousers; a ticking clock. His complicity in slave labour and the tragic end to the workers are already past. Their forgiveness he might seek but what use that? He can get help for Maramba, the bipolar and substance dependent mother of his children. There are no guarantees. He must take care of Ana and Mateo's futures.

"The universe will look after them."

"The universe doesn't pay the rent."

Though he fights it, Uxbal knows that the universe might not pay the rent but it can take the rent back at any moment, or render it worthless in a heartbeat, in a slip, in a blaze, in passion, in a decision, a simple decision. The moment will come. The universe will outlast the rent.

"Put your affairs in order Uxbal. That's all that matters."

What affairs could there possibly be? Uxbal's father, for instance, has lain in his grave for decades only to find himself cremated through economic necessity. Any affairs to be put in order will ultimately be futile and in these final months Uxbal realises that the universe doesn't care but, for what it's worth, he does.