Night 3: Vicky Christina Barcelona

Took a new turn on my movie marathon-ing last night, meaning, not dark and brooding? :P

Ended the night with Woody Allen's "Vicky Christina Barcelona."

This title makes most sense if you think of it like this:

Vicky. Christina. Barcelona.

(the adventure of it becomes implied, at this point.)

Here's the thing about Woody Allen films.......ummmmm....duh, i love the

m. And this? Well, no exception, but maybe a little bit of one.

The BEST part of the film, like all good films (good meaning, makes sense and doesn't drive me crazy,) comes at the end. Our resolution. The movie begins by comparing two friends together. Vicky, who knows exactly what she wants out of love, and Christina, who

does not know, but knows what she does not want.

By the end of the film--surprise surprise! We reach a magical conclusion. Vicky now knows exactly what she does NOT want out of love (that which she actually has,) and Christina knows what she does not want. Turns out, they're different viewpoints now equal the same thing.

Now if that isn't a nice bow to put on top of a package, I don't know what is.

What a simply complicated film. I mean that quite literally, "simply," "complicated."

Vicky is engaged.

Christina goes after Antonio.

Antonio is divorced.

Christina gets sick.

Vicky makes love with Antonio.

Antonio focuses on Christina.

Antonio's ex-wife comes back.

Vicky marries her fiance.

Antonio, Christina, and Penelope Cruz have a happy, productive relationship.

Christina leaves.

Penelope Cruz leaves.

Antonio and Vicky kiss.

and Penelope Cruz comes back and tries to kill them.

WOW.

VERY COMPLICATED.

So why does it work?

It works because nobody beats around the bush about what's going on. Did I mention this movie is set in Spain? Did I mention that means the normal rules and laws about attraction are different? They are. Very much so. Antonio (Javier Bardem) is unbelievably sexy in this movie; opening, surrendering, and vocalizing all of his desires. This leads him to make good choices, keep his women comfortable and informed, and allows them to make their own respective good choices, however unconventional they may be.

Each character compliments and completes another one in a very wonderfu

lly circular way; the only character we really experience as having a present struggle is Vicky who just married a man she doesn't really love (being responsible, being steady.) The rest are just who they are, which is complicated enough.

i like what this reviewer has to say about the film, giving more texture and subtext to surface events i describe above: ,

“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is a rueful comedy about two young American women who, during a summertime European idyll, savor many of the Continental delicacies that such travelers often take pleasure in: art, music, culture, yes, but also strange bodies and unexpected dreams. These bodies and dreams open possibilities for the women, intimating freer, somehow different lives, despite the persistent tugging of a voice that hovers at the edge of this story trying to pull it and its characters down to earth, where desire can

fade quickly."

Christina confuses love and pain, looks constantly for passion, is shy about her art, and ready to throw herself to the wind in an attempt to find herself.

Antonio is spanish, loves Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) tirelessly, and recognizes that they just are not compatible at all.

Maria Elena is a hellcat of a woman, with every bit of fire and spice that any woman worth her salt has. She is amazing. This movie works because Penelope Cruz, a hellcat of a woman, allows

Maria Elena to live up to her reputation. The other characte

rs speak of Maria Elena as being gorgeous, talented, spirited, the most amazing woman, and she is. She truly is. Cruz leaves no hesitation, no question about right or wrong, no reason for us to doubt how truly free-spirited and bold this woman is. She is perfect.

this is also a perfect note about the film, the reviewer, who just finishes saying that Bardem and Cruz, who could have been stuck in Spanish stereotypes, easily break past them by infusing their characters with very real will and heart. He continues with thoughts I agree with on Vicky and Christina:

"Maria Elena and Juan Antonio give the film such a twinned jolt of energy that you may wish it would head off into Almodóvar country, but that wouldn’t be true to Mr. Allen, for whom desire remains an agony. Still, he’s enough of an entertainer to give the audience its pleasures, which partly accounts for Ms. Johansson. She isn’t much of an actress, but it doesn’t terribly matter in his films: She gives him succulent youth, and he cushions her with enough laughs to distract you from her lack of skill. The appealing Ms. Hall, whose jaw line and brittle delivery evokeKatharine Hepburn, furnishes an actual performance, one that, tinged with sadness, makes evident that this is as much a tragedy as a comedy."

And so the characters live their lives, a summer in Spain, lives which are complicated, messy, but not hard to follow. The movie is beautiful, Bardem gives a solid grounding with a very present masculine energy amidst such tripled, VERY DIVERSE feminine energy, and the live-live-now-old time-romanticism of Spain is captured easily and picturesquely.

Second favorite moment of the film: In the climax of the film, Bardem is caught in the midst of two hysterical women; Maria Elena, is Spanish, holds a gun and fires wildly, exclaiming that she can't live this life, this isn't the life she wants! Vicky, having just been shot and emotions firing wildly about Antonio, breaks out, in English, "i can't live this life! this isn't the life i want!" The audience, struck by the amazing similarity these women suddenly have to each other, are suddenly aware of an earlier comment Antonio made to Maria Elena, that his American Tourist was the exact antithesis of herself. Here, we see the glue that holds all the characters together--they're whole, as four, that fill in the gaps and crevices from one to the next. They're beautiful.

The only minor discredit I give the film is the Voice Over, the narration, which is attached to no character at all. It's young, it's very modern, and it's very American. I didn't think it fit well with the entire environment of the film. Meh. Who knows. What's your take on it?