When you watch this film, I know what will be on your mind. Can I laugh? The answer is, yes, you can laugh. As dramatic as the turns in this movie are, it’s meant to be comedy. Don’t feel bad. Even the co-star Penelope Cruz wasn’t aware of this until the film’s theatrical premiere.
The film revolves around two American tourists, Vicky and Cristina played by Rebecca Hall and the sexy Scarlet Johansson, whom spend the summer in Barcelona. Vicky is a goal-oriented, Type A personality who’s engaged to a well connected but impassionate man back home. Cristina on the other hand is spontaneous, artistic, and seeking passion in her life. While in Barcelona, they get a proposal from a Juan Antonio, a smoldering painter played by Javier Bardem, to spend the weekend touring the quaint city of Oveido. Completely frank with his intentions, he’s pursuing a three-way. Vicky, who’s against the trip, is talked into it by Cristina, who’s enamored by Juan. But when Cristina gets sick, Vicky and Juan spend some quality time together and end up making love. Unaware of this, Cristina pursues a relationship with him, and then Juan’s homicidal ex-fiance Maria Elena is thrown into the mix after a suicide attempt. Things start to get sticky, but not in the way you expect.
Woody Allen’s style shines in this picture. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle praised the film as “the work of a confident and mature artist,” and I couldn’t agree more. Many ABC’s of filmmaking, like don’t let narration tell your story and build set pieces, are thrown out the window, yet Allen still completely grabs your focus from the start of the movie. Twenty minutes in, I’m hooked, having to know what happens to these characters, and even though the end makes the film seem pointless, the journey turns out to be well worth the ride.
The Highpoints for me –
1) The scenic Barcelona views
2) The infectious theme song – Barcelona Giulia & Los Tellarini
3) Watching Johansen and Cruz make-out
4) The thrill of watching characters struggle with figuring out what they want and still not have any clue by the end.
CULTURAL INTROSPECTION:
SPOILER ALERT- not really, you can see it in the previews but after Maria Ellena gets over her intentions to kill Cristina, they grow VERY close. Does Juan get jealous? Hell no, he tags right along for the ride creating a polyamorous relationship. Juan and Maria’s marriage dissolved because they were missing a small but crucial piece. Johansen turns out to be that missing piece and the three of them are able to function cohesively. Today’s society is adamantly against such non-traditional unions marked with Bohemian ideals, but even Type A Vicky, when asked if she could ever do it, says no, not because she thinks it’s immoral, but because she doesn’t have the courage. Juan’s father is a poet, but punishes the world by not publicizing his work, justifying this because he thinks the people of the world forgot how to love. Now I’m not pro-polygamy or anything, but with so much ugly in the world, if three people can get along harmoniously and love each other, whose it anyone’s business to stop them.
THE BLACK PERSPECTIVE:
Again, a movie with no black people. I can ignore this since it was shot in Barcelona and directed by Woody Allen, yet I can still give my two cents on how the film relates to black or even black filmmaking in general.
I watched two black films a couple weeks ago. First Sunday and This Christmas. Since my blog is seriously lacking black film reivews, I really wanted to do reviews for them, but couldn’t bring myself to it. It wasn’t that they were bad, because they weren’t. They weren’t good either. They were so-so, just lacking really, nothing special to talk about or get excited about in either direction.
Both these two movies and Vicky Cristina Barcelona have average storylines, but I asked myself what makes them so different. The answer – style. Woody Allen has it for days. The music, the narration, the language, all are quirky in their own right but mesh well for a unique enjoyable experience. Meanwhile First Sunday and This Christmas seem to be clones from so many other black films, it’s disappointing. Yes, Allen is a film veteran and has the luxury to do his thing his way, while David Talbert and Preston A. Whitmore have the handicap of having Hollywood studio execs breathing down their backs, but still, how do they ever expect to break away from the pack if they can’t deliver something new. It’s not enough just to be a black film. If black films every want to increase their status, someone is going to have to reinvent the genre, and not in a Tyler Perry formulaic way.
With that said, I would like to note, not all black filmmakers lack style. Last year, indie filmmaker Barry Jenkins came out with Medicine for Melancholy, the tale of two African-American twenty-year old somethings roaming the city of San Francisco after a one-night stand. Check out the style in the trailer below and then try and tell me of a black filmmaker who can match it.
EXTRAS:
Penelope Cruz is nominated for an Academy-Award for her role as Maria Ellena. This is her second nomination. Also Barcelona partially funded the film, wanting Woody Allen to do a movie showcasing their city.
RATING:
= 4 Stars
= 0 Fists
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