Biutiful Film Analysis

The Prevalence of Capitalism
Being born in a Western European nation with compressive welfare policies, I have been one of the fortunate ones in this world to not suffer from severe poverty. Because of my childhood experience, I was particularly fascinated by the representation of living in the urban society of Barcelona in the movie Biutiful. The movie tells the story of a father who has to deal with multiple problems facing him at the same time, besides dealing with terminal cancer. A large part of his daily struggle stems from not having the financial resources to provide a decent environment for his family. This is illustrated in one of the first scenes of the movie where the family is having breakfast cereal for dinner (Iñárritu, 2010).

The philosophy of critical theory has been involved in analyzing the dynamics of power and assessing the naturalness of Western culture, and therefore provided literature that has attempted to explain the dynamics behind the consolidation of capitalism. Bruno Latour focused on the naturalness that the notion of capitalism has attained through the discipline of economics, making it appear as a natural self-governing phenomenon. Furthermore, this naturalness obscures the negative and unfair effects of the system, as we find ourselves unable to effectively comprehend its dynamics. This can be viewed in both a national-, and an international respect. Immanuel Wallerstein has looked at the history of the global proliferation of capitalism, subdividing states into core-, peripheral- and semi-peripheral states areas. The core areas have developed themselves with highly skilled labor and accumulated great amounts of capital, which safeguarded their privileged position in the future. According to Wallerstein, the great diversity of political systems in the world did not impede the capitalistic proliferation but, to the contrary, helped its consolidation. As economic exploitation and enterprises are not limited to national boundaries, capitalists made use of the great political diversity, maneuvering through this landscape to find optimal positions from which to do business. Lastly, the current privileged position of wealthy nations can be explained by looking at the economic environment before free markets became ordinary. Back then, the prevailing ideology was statism, which involved high degrees of state involvement in the economy. Strong state machinery and its great potential encouraged nationalistic sentiments, leaving the public with a sense of pride and justifying the economic and social