A movie that strips away at the fake romanticism and glamor that so many movies portray as real live. This is real life Barcelona - poverty, mental illness, slave labor, african immigrants who prefer this low level of survival to no survival in their african country, yet all the while humanity and human strivings continue - a will to live, to be a good parent, to provide for one's children, survival love. The movie is gut-wrenching real and Bardem amazing as ever.