ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Biutiful points to a shift in the debate about the representation of migrants in Spanish cinema. Twenty years after the first film devoted attention to the phenomenon of immigration in Spain, Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu creates a depiction of Barcelona as a post-migration city where migrants and nationals share the space on equal terms. The film does this by focusing on migrant and marginalized characters throughout the story 'and by largely frustrating the viewer's predictable expectation for glimpses of the city's triumphant and monumental architecture'. It offers an insight into the contrast between past and present through the use of the chimneys as part of the landscape of this area of Barcelona. Scene exemplifies how Uxbal is portrayed as a migrant body and soul, thanks to the contrast the film makes between the natural migrant spirit of wildlife and the migrant experience due to exclusionary political ideas and practices.
